Solace of Gemini
by PurpleHairedGenius
Summary: Post-Season 4 finale; how will Lana's pregnancy effect those in her life, especially Archer? NOT a sequel to my other story, The MOAB. Rated M for...well it's Archer. All characters belong to Adam Reed and Floyd County. Reviews constantly welcome! UPDATE May 20th, 2013: Changed the title; formerly Nippers and Turkey: A Love Story
1. Gator Aid

Chapter One: Gator Aid

Lana Kane, alone in her apartment, was staring out of her balcony window over the East River, her tired, dark green eyes starting to create tiny tear droplets as she held her cell phone against her ear.

Cyril, her boyfriend, had been screaming obscenities at her, becoming progressively drunker, for almost an hour over the phone; he still believed that Lana cheated on him, even though she had explained to him a dozen times that she had used a sperm donor to conceive her baby, even going so far as to show him the paperwork from the clinic. Unfortunately, this did not make things any better.

Typically, Lana would not tolerate any degree of verbal abuse from anyone, especially Cyril, but she figured it was at least partially her fault for going through with the artificial insemination process without even telling him; she was mostly ignoring his drunken yelling, but she knew that they were over...how it was dragging out, however, made it all the more painful.

"Aaand another thing, Laaana, you are a...a total harlot, little Miss Cheaty McGee! How could'yoo do dish to me? Dammit, Lana, I _loved_ you, I would've given you a baby if you asked, but noooooo, **you** just hadda go, and...and take it from a-a TURKEY BASTER! Oh, god..." Cyril slurred into the phone.

A loud "clunk" sound, followed by crying and a dial tone was all that was heard on the phone after that.

Lana, her emotions scrambled from the prolonged guilt trip and subsequent conclusion of their relationship, opened the sliding glass door to her balcony, and threw her phone in the direction of the river, and screamed in anger, hurt, and guilt.

She shut the glass door behind her, calming down, and rested her chin on her folded arms, leaning over the cold steel of railing, staring out into the balmy moonlit night. She watched the ripples in the river, and reflected on Cyril...

Her relationship with the ISIS comptroller had been the longest she had been in since her and Archer broke up 5 years ago. She often thought about Sterling, and, though she hated admitting it, still had very strong feelings for him, especially after his sacrifice down in Sealab.

Lana shuddered at the memory of seeing Archer die before her eyes, his pupils contracting to pinpoints as the icy ocean water filled his lungs...his dying words proclaiming his love haunted her. She knew he loved her, and she loved him as well, but the older memory of how often he cheated on her when they were together still made her sick.

"Oof, speaking of sick...oh boy..." Lana grabbed the guardrails and vomited over the edge, the sudden wave of nausea interrupting her thoughts.

When she finished being sick, she pulled out a packet of moist towelettes she had been toting around in her pocket and wiped her face, before slumping down into her plush deck chair.

"Goddammit, kid, why do you have to keep making me puke?", she said out loud to her growing belly. She was now three months along in her pregnancy, and was still being occasionally afflicted by nausea.

"Duh, Lana, maybe it's because you're channeling the ghost of Karen Carpenter..."

Lana, startled, looked over to her right; Archer was suction-cupped to the side of her building, wearing his night vision goggles.

"What the shit, Archer?! Why are you Spidermanning around my building? Oh, and Karen Carpenter was anorexic, not bulimic, dumbass", she helped him over the railing as Sterling climbed onto the balcony.

"Six of one, Lana. And I was just responding to the distress beacon thing your cell phone was sending out; shit, it was saying you were drowning...when I checked your location and it said you were at your place, I figured you just dropped it in the toilet while you were doing the technicolor yawn for like the bazillionth time. Glad you're all right, though, since you drowning would've been pretty counterintuitive to my awesome heroics", Archer said as he removed the cups from his knees and hands, put the goggles on top of his head, and switched off the beeping GPS tracker that was locked onto Lana's location.

"Oh, gotcha...um, sorry about that. Yeah, I just chucked my phone at the river. Surprised it made it into the water though. Didn't think I could throw it _that_ far", Lana sat back down on her chair, her ankles getting sore and slightly swollen from being on her feet often.

Archer pulled up the smaller, plastic patio chair and sat next to her.

"Don't worry about it, Johnny Bench...so how's the kid treating you so far? Aside from apparently triggering your gag reflex whenever it gets bored, I mean", he asked, pointing his thumb at Lana's tiny, almost unnoticeable baby bump.

"Aside from the shitloads of vomit, it's been ok...but Cyril...he just...I mean, we just broke up a few minutes ago...that fucking asshole." She said the last part under her breath.

"Heh, well that doesn't surprise me. I'm actually impressed that you put up with that bespectacled douchebag for _this_ long..."

Lana, her hormones getting the best of her, started to cry, much to Archer's dismay. She'd been crying easily ever since her second month.

"Aww, goddammit Lana, not again...okay, fine, c'mere, shh. It's all right, quit crying..." Sterling scooted his chair right next to hers, and hugged Lana close, rubbing her back; she buried her face into the warm, black fabric of his turtleneck shirt. He rolled his eyes, annoyed at how emotional Lana had been lately. He anticipated her being more pissed off than normal (he was used to Lana's wrath by now, seeing that he was usually the target of said wrath...), but the crying had been an obnoxious, unforeseen development.

After a few minutes of being comforted, Lana's tears finally stopped. She sniffled, and held onto Archer quietly. She closed her tired eyes, feeling safe and secure in her ex's arms. Sterling sighed quietly, and cradled the back of her head against his chest, staring at his boots, trying not to jostle Lana's rattled nerves and make her cry again.

With her increased hormone levels, Lana's sense of smell had been greatly heightened lately. She breathed in Archer's scent deeply, and could smell fresh sweat, a tiny waft of bourbon, bay rum (his favorite cologne), and the subtle hint of lavender aleppo soap, which also had a vague hint of bay laurel. Just like she remembered him smelling...she sighed at the comforting familiarity of him, and snuggled closer against Sterling.

Archer, struggling to keep his mouth shut (and his growing erection undetected), cleared his throat uncomfortably. Lana, snapping out of her dreamy daze, lifted her head off of his chest and let go of his torso.

"Sorry...", Lana mumbled. They sat next to each other in awkward silence for a minute, looking up at the full moon.

Sterling had been in love with Lana for years; he kicked himself mentally every day for cheating on her and treating her like dirt when they were dating, and had wished that he could travel back in time to beat the shit out of his younger self for doing so. But, unfortunately, Krieger's "time machine" was just an old phone booth with a tank of sevoflurane that pumped the sweet-smelling anesthetic inside of it with a digital clock duct-taped on the door...not exactly useful.

Archer caught a glimpse of Lana out of the corner of his eye. The pale summer moonlight illuminated her face, her makeup streaked with tears. She looked so sad, so tired, yet so beautiful, it made him cringe in regret.

Finally, Lana stood up, holding her small belly. She sniffled and looked down at Archer with a soft smile.

"I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight after what happened with Cyril, so I'm just gonna go in and watch a movie..." She walked back into her large apartment, Archer following her inside.

As she browsed through her video collection, Archer helped himself to her jade-tiled wet bar, which had been gathering dust since she became pregnant, and poured himself a tumbler of Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks.

"So, did you need me to hang out here with you while you mope around all night eating Häagen-Dazs, watching some chick flick, or should I go ahead and take off before y-ooh, _Gator_!"

Archer's rudeness was cut short as the opening scene of one of his favorite movies came up on the TV. He plopped down on the giant, overstuffed white suede couch, inches from Lana, a huge grin spread across his face. He sipped his drink happily, and settled into the comfy couch, eyes glued to the TV screen.

Lana scooted closer to Sterling, happy to see him enjoying himself and to have some company. As the opening scene played, Jerry Reed's funky swamp music played, sparking the memory of the night he gave the copy of _Gator_ to her for their anniversary one year. At the time, she hated it and was infuriated at the selfish gesture, but kept it around purely for sentimental value.

Sterling absent-mindedly snaked his arm around Lana's shoulder, and took another sip of his whiskey.

They watched the entire movie without saying a single word. Archer, who was already exhausted when he arrived, passed out shortly after the credits rolled, Lana still under his arm. She soon fell asleep as well, and had the best night's rest she's had in months, curled up on her couch with Sterling.


	2. Bokanovsky Be Damned

Note: In case there's confusion about the name of this story, it's a reference to _Bartleby the Scrivener_ by Herman Melville. Melville, who is also the author of one of my own favorites, _Moby Dick_, has been referenced in Archer a bunch of times...it's hilarious how obscure some of the references in this show gets. Speaking of obscure literary references...

Chapter Two: Bokanovsky Be Damned

"Eep! What do you do, freeze that shit before smearing it all over me?" Lana sucked air through her teeth at the cold gel on her abdomen, staring daggers at the ultrasound tech.

"Sorry, Ms Kane, I'll try to warm up the gel for you next time. Any troubles or concerns today?", the tech said, watching the screen while rolling the ultrasound transducer around Lana's belly.

"How about Cyril being a big fat 'fraidy puss and leaving this poor doll knocked up and alone? Can that you fix that?", Ray quipped, holding Lana's hand.

This was Lana's third ultrasound appointment, and the second one that Ray had accompanied her to. Ray, who recently had the CPU that controlled his legs replaced, had been spending much more time with his friend ever since Cyril had a nervous breakdown and left not only Lana, but ISIS as well.

No one knew for sure where he went. Aside from a report of a 'Chet Manley' chartering a boat in French Polynesia three weeks after he left, there hasn't been a single clue as to where he went. Frankly, very few people at ISIS cared enough about his absence to really try to track him down. Lana seemed much happier now that he was gone.

"Aww, Ray, honey, it's sweet that you're pissed off at Cyril for leaving me, but trust me, there is _no_ reason for me to try and find him. Honestly, I believe my kid will be much better off without knowing that trout-shouldered asshole..." Lana trailed off, glancing casually at the ultrasound screen.

The fetus was 4 months along now, and was visible in profile on the screen. Ray stared at the screen, speechless, and started sniffling.

"Oh, it's so god damned beautiful! Lana, dear, your baby is gonna be so friggin' cute!" Ray blew his nose into his handkerchief. Lana could only squeeze his hand in response, doing her best to pay attention to the severely grainy, unfocused image on the screen but to no avail.

"So, Ms Kane, did you want to know the gender of your baby? I can tell you right now if you'd like" the tech asked, smiling.

Lana thought about it for a moment, Ray holding his breath in anticipation. Soon, Lana replied, "How about you just write it down on the printout sheet for me? I'll read it later"

"Awww, dukes!" Ray folded his arms and slumped in his chair, disappointed.

"Of course. Well, everything looks good and healthy here, so unless there's anything else I can answer for you, we're all done", the tech wiped the cold, clear goo off of Lana's belly.

Ray helped Lana sit upright, and grabbed her purse and sunglasses off the table next to him. The tech wrote down the gender of the baby on the printed ultrasound picture and handed it to Lana. Without even looking at it, she put it in her purse and they left.

"When were you planning on figuring out if it's gonna be a boy or girl? Because I am literally dying with anticipation...well, anticipation and heat stroke" Ray and Lana walked the four blocks back to ISIS headquarters, basking in the heat emanating from the sidewalk. It was mid-July, and New York was in the midst of a heat wave.

Lana clenched her hand around the strap of her purse; she was struggling to determine that herself.

"I'm not sure, Ray, but let's just wait til we get back to the office...I think I'm melting" Lana wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

"Remind me again why did we decided to walk through the sixth circle of Hell instead of taking a nice air conditioned cab back to ISIS like normal people?" Ray whined, squinting when a droplet of sweat got into his eye.

"Because Malory is sending Archer and me to shoot some dictator in the desert in a couple months, and I need to acclimate to the heat as much as possible before we go. We're almost back to the office though, so pick up your garters and keep walking!" Lana trudged along, ISIS HQ in sight.

Ray furrowed his brow, and huffed, "...at least I can still _use_ garters if I wanted to, Miss Edema Legs..."

The two walked into Popeye's Suds and Duds, sighing in relief upon entering the air conditioned room. Popeye nodded at them as they went over to the dryer/elevator, pouring a cold beer for himself.

"Hot mother today...mmm hmm. Gonna have to stock up on ice...both kinds. Yessir."

Lana and Ray were startled when the elevator doors chimed opened; Pam and Cheryl were standing directly in front of the door, waiting for them to arrive. Pam was bouncing up and down with excitement, and Cheryl simply followed suit and acted excited too.

Lana rolled her eyes and pushed her way past them.

"No, Pam, I still don't know what the gender of the kid is!" She shouted over her shoulder. Pam's excitement fizzled.

"Aww, shit snacks", she said sadly. She wandered back to her desk. Cheryl stayed where she was, looking confused.

"Wait, what were we excited about?"

Lana and Ray parted ways; Archer emerged out of Malory's office as Lana walked by.

"Well Lana, is it a boy, or a disappointment? OW!" Archer cringed as Lana whacked him upside his head, hard, with her purse. The ultrasound sheet fell out onto the floor, unnoticed by either agent.

"I don't know yet, you prick. And a girl would be just as good as a boy; I don't care so much about the kid's gender, as long as it's healthy..." Lana walked towards the break room for an orange soda.

Archer scowled and rubbed his head. He looked down at the floor, and saw the ultrasound sheet.

"Jesus, hoarding buckles in her purse, crabby _and_ a litterbug...talk about a trifecta of- wait, what the fuck...oh my god, no way..."

Archer, with a giant smirk across his face, ran to the break room as fast as he could, holding the sheet in his hand.

"LANA! Lana! Shit, did you read this?! You're...you're-" he looked at her wild-eyed, trying his best not to break out in laughter.

Lana, bewildered, stared at him with her eyes wide open, a full bottle of soda in hand.

"I'm what, Archer ? What's the matter? Wait, where'd you find that?" She grabbed the sheet from him angirly and, reading the sheet, dropped her bottle of soda, causing it to shatter on the break room floor.

"YOU'RE HAVING TWINS! And they're BOTH BOYS! Ahh-ha ha! Holy shit, Lana, your vagina is never gonna be the same again! Hey, everyone, Lana's having TWIN BOYS! Woo hoo hoo!"

Archer grabbed the ultrasound picture from her again, and ran out of the break room, laughing maniacally, leaving Lana flabbergasted.

"T-twins...? Oh my god. I'm having twin boys!" The realization settled in, and a strange sense of elation arose in her. Being careful not to step on the sticky broken glass (and muttering something under her breath about getting ants), she bought another bottle of orange soda, then went out to join in the circle of coworkers, who were congratulating and/or offering their condolences, depending on their gender.

Archer was Xeroxing the ultrasound sheet and passing the copies around to everyone, still chortling to himself, shouting "TWIN BOYS, LANA!".

"Wow, Lana, didn't think you'd wind up giving birth to a whole litter of kids...ugh, _birth_..." Cheryl squished up her nose at the offending word. Lana ignored her craziness, and was then picked up off the floor in a bear hug by a wildly-ecstatic Pam.

"I can't believe you're having two bouncing baby boys! Ooh, I'm gonna have to arrange a baby shower for you soon! You're gonna need all the help you can get!" Pam put a very-smushed Lana back down on her feet.

"What's going on? Why is everyone in a huddle? Did you all join a football team? Because that would just be asinine." Malory came out of her office, holding a drink.

"Mother, you won't believe this! Lana, she's having _twins_! Both boys!" Archer put his arm over Lana's shoulder, still chuckling to himself in disbelief.

Malory stared down at Lana's round stomach. "Oh my _God_...well, don't think you'll be getting any extra maternity leave out of ISIS, Missy! Either way, congratulations, your uterus is now a clown car...be sure to get an all-clear from Dr Krieger before your next assignment, the last headache I need to deal with from this place is another miscarriage lawsuit!" Malory walked off, ignoring the aghast faces of her employees.

"Jesus, what the hell is wrong with her?" Lana questioned after Malory left the room.

Archer, still winding down from the excitement, just patted Lana roughly on the back, "Probably just expressing her joy as much as she can...trust me, she'll probably go eat a puppy now, she's so overwhelmed with happiness...", he said as he rummaged through a random desk and fished out a bottle of brandy.

Lana just shot him a glare, and went back to talking with her coworkers.

Ray came out of the bathroom, zipping up his pants, "What's all the commotion about, y'all?"

He was not pleased to be the last one in the office to learn the good news of Lana's babies.

Later that evening, Dr Krieger sat in his lab, studying Lana's medical file; Malory had asked him to give her a physical the next day, and he wanted to review her records beforehand.

He skimmed down to where the copy of her artificial insemination information was, and gasped when he saw which sperm bank she used...

"...oooh, wow...that'll probably put a monkey wrench in the works."

A glowing, irradiated chimpanzee then tore through the lab, brandishing a wrench in it's hand.

"GODDAMMIT, CHIMPLY, PUT THAT DOWN!"

He closed Lana's file, and chased after his creation, pistol in hand.


	3. Pop, Rock (Paper, Scissors), and Coke

Chapter Three: Pop, Rock (Paper, Scissors), and Coke

Lana, who had spent several hours the previous night painting the babies' nursery a light blue with Ray and Archer, walked through ISIS, humming to herself happily, drinking another bottle of orange pop.

She was making her way to the laboratory for her appointment with Dr Krieger, and had been preparing for the upcoming assignment in Tangier, which was 5 months away.

Archer caught up with Lana, drink in hand, and walked with her.

"Are you sure you're all right with Dr Hitler Junior giving you a physical? Last time he gave me one, he gave me so many enemas my eyes were floating..." Archer sipped his scotch.

"You know what, Archer, I am. Because I am just _too_ happy today to give a shit! In fact, how about you come with me for my appointment, and make sure he doesn't turn me into a Crazy Daisy sprinkler too" Lana buzzed the elevator to go down to the ISIS laboratory.

Archer was glad that Lana had quit crying at everything for a while now, and appreciated her improved mood. He stepped through the steel double doors with her.

"Hoo, boy, Lana, you still haven't called Kenny Loggins yet, have you? Classic you...", swirling his scotch in it's tumbler, Archer shook his head at her, and smirked smugly as he leaned his back against the elevator wall.

Lana just crossed her arms over her growing stomach, finished off her soda, and smiled at Sterling.

"Y'know, Archer, I'm actually really impressed with how much you've been helping me through this. Between helping Ray and I paint the nursery last night, to ordering the extra crib for me, you've actually been less of a pain in my ass than I expected. Thank you, Sterling", Lana said with a warm smile, putting her free hand on Archer's shoulder.

He smiled back at her; the doors rang open to Krieger's laboratory. Lana tossed the empty pop bottle into the recycling bin next to the elevator; Archer chucked his mother's empty heavy, crystal tumbler in after it with a laugh.

"Ouch, Jesus, do you have to draw so much blood?" Lana winced at the needle jab as it entered her median cubital vein. Krieger, who was filling the dozenth vial with Lana's blood, was silent, fixated on watching the red fluid spurt into the clear tube.

"Yeah, weirdo, what's with all the blood-letting? Trying out 16th century leeching?", Archer drew his Walther PPK from his jacket and casually aimed it at the scientist.

"No, proper leeching would require a lot more blood to yield desired results from a pregnant woman. I just...um, need to verify something real quick. One sec..." Krieger popped the half-filled vial of blood out of Lana's arm roughly brought it over to his work bench, and tossed it into the pile of other vials containing Lana's blood.

Lana grabbed a paper towel from the exam table and pressed it against her abused blood vessel, elevating her arm above her head and applying pressure to slow the bleeding.

Archer holstered his weapon, "Man, I swear he took like a thousand gills from you...you feel ok? Trust me, I know losing a lot of blood sucks.", he said as he pulled his silver flask from the pocket inside his jacket.

Lana, still happy despite being nearly bled out, just nodded and smiled. She checked the paper towel, and continued applying pressure to the jab.

Moments later, Krieger came back holding Lana's medical records.

"Well, according to all of my tests, you're cleared for field work. But hey, ah, super quick, irrelevant question: the sperm bank you used, did it happen to be CryoMetrics Inc down on 30th Avenue?", he asked while leafing through the documents in the manila folder.

"Yes...why?" Lana's mood started to decline, suspicion of Krieger's tone kicking in.

"Huh, yeeeaaaah, and the donor you chose, it was anonymous, right? Only identifiable by an ID number?", he stopped flipping through the papers to look at his patient.

"Yeah, Krieger, what's your point?"

He pulled out the copy of her donor's info sheet, and read the number out loud, "Let's see...so Donor 934TXS has a master's degree, some military experience, loves animals, and has a strong sense of humor?" He looked up nervously over the sheet at both Archer and Lana.

Archer, mostly ignoring what was happening, was playing rock, paper, scissors with Chimply. He belched loudly, and laughed along with the glowing primate.

Lana, growing impatient with Krieger's vagueness, put her bleeding arm down with an annoyed sigh.

"Yeah, I know all that, Clone Wars! Why do you keep asking?"

He hid his face behind the folder again, "...promise you won't get mad?"

Lana drew her gun and pointed it at Krieger, and shouted, "NO!"

"I...sold some vials of semen to a guy I know at CryoMetrics Inc for coke money about six months ago, and I stole one of them from ISIS cold storage-"

Archer, who had started paying attention to the conversation, grew pale...he started muttering to himself in disbelief.

"Wait wait wait...no, you have GOT to be shitting me...not the sperm samples of all active male ISIS agents..." Lana lowered the barrel of her TEC 9, looking at Archer nervously.

Krieger peeked over the top of the folder again, "...it was _really_ good coke, if that's any consolation".

Archer's eyes darted between Lana and Krieger, and, realizing what was happening, swayed on his feet and fainted. Chimply walked over to him, and started grooming his scalp.

Lana, her wrath at critical levels, TEC 9 still in her hand, stared angrily at Dr Krieger. She hopped off the table, stepped over Archer's unconscious body and around the bright green monkey, and reaimed her weapon at Krieger as she walked towards him, backing him against his work bench.

Their faces millimeters apart, Lana narrowed her eyes, and stuck the end of the barrel at Krieger's stomach.

"If you tell me there is at least a fraction of a chance that I'm _not_ knocked up with TWO tiny little versions of Archer, I will let you live", she hissed, jamming the gun into his gut to emphasize her words.

Krieger, panicked, looked right back at her, and stammered, "Well, seeing that there was only three active male ISIS agents at the time when I sold the samples to DJ Fracas, the janitor at the sperm bank, and one of them opted out of providing a sample because he was a gay and didn't want kids in the future, and the other absolutely hated animals and possessed no sense of humor, and the rest of the samples I sold to him was pig semen...let's just say, unless you give birth to Babe and Wilbur, the chances are pretty slim it _isn't_ Archer's kids."

Lana, her eye twitching, lowered the gun to Krieger's foot, and fired a single round into him, then holstered her weapon.

She stormed out of the laboratory, pausing to look down at Archer's passed out form on the cold linoleum of the floor.

"If I don't see snouts on my next ultrasound, you'd damn well better be a good father, you son of a bitch."

She got back on the elevator, and punched the button to take her up a floor back to the office.

Krieger, who was sitting on the floor, crying and holding his injured foot, shifted his sitting position uncomfortably.

"I am SO glad she didn't notice my erection...", he said to himself.

Chimply grinned at the wounded scientist, and went back to grooming Archer's hair.


	4. Trout and Potatoes

Chapter Four: Trout and Potatoes

Cyril Figgis had been on the lam for nearly 5 months; during this time, he had traveled the world, blowing off steam by banging legions of beautiful women and drinking insanely large quantities of booze and eating shit-tons of various luxury candies, all funded by him rerouting ISIS funds to various bank accounts he opened for himself worldwide.

The former accountant, who had dyed his salt and pepper hair a chestnut brown and had swapped his horn-rimmed glasses for blue color contacts, now stood nervously in the JFK Airport, hiding behind a newspaper, scanning the terminal for any signs of ISIS. He was waiting to pick up someone that he hadn't seen in a very long time.

"It's about freakin' time ya showed up, you shit-ass!", Trinette blurted out at the back of Cyril's head.

The blonde, retired 'escort', and mother to the wee, now-toddler Seamus dropped her luggage and hugged Cyril.

"Oh, Trinette! It's such a relief to see you!", he hugged her back, elated that she not only remembered him, but wanted to come back to New York to move in with him to start a new life.

"Who is that, Mommy?", Seamus, now four years old, tugged at Trinette's skirt and pointed at Cyril.

Trinette scooped up her son and perched him against her hip, and introduced them, "This man, Seamus, is your daddy. Not like Daddy Popeye, but your real, actual father. Say 'hi', c'mon don't be rude" she chided. Seamus just stared at Cyril with his big brown eyes, then hid his face in his mother's shoulder.

"Heh, cute...", Cyril said as he ruffled the little boy's black hair. He picked up Trinette's luggage off the floor, and they walked towards the exits.

The trio walked outside the terminal and hailed down a taxi, loading all of their belongings in the trunk.

"So, Trinette, how was life in Las Vegas?", Cyril asked, happy to have a small sense of normalcy back in his life once more. Trinette shrugged, and readjusted Seamus's car seat belt.

"Eh, it was fun...got to meet a lot of interesting people, learned some new tricks...oh, I almost forgot, I found this the night I spent in the slammer for giving an undercover cop a handy! Couldn't believe it!", Trinette handed Cyril a sheet of paper.

It was the old mug shot of Archer holding up the name, "Cyril Figgis".

The actual Cyril glared at the black and white image, and tore it to pieces, dropping them on the floor of the taxi.

"Hey, the hell crawled up your ass, ya puke? That was some funny shit right there!" She looked at the mess on the floor, brushing some stray bits off of Seamus.

"What crawled up my ass, Trinette, is that I've had my life _decimated_ by that, that-", he cupped his hands gently over his son's ears, " that FUCKING ASSHOLE!", he bellowed. He removed his hands, patted the boy's head affectionately, and handed him a rare Bulgarian sucker he pulled out of his black leather coat pocket.

Trinette, raising an eyebrow at Cyril, finally spoke after a few minutes of silence.

"What the shit did he do to you, big fella?"

Cyril sighed, and, over the long commute home, told his brand new family every single one of the god awful things Archer had said and done to him in recent years, what had happened to him and Lana, and finally his nervous breakdown at ISIS and subsequent wanderings, all leading up to their reuniting one drunken internet search ago over Craigslist in the "Missed Connections" section.

"Holy shit, baby...we've gotta get those ISIS pigs back for fucking with you like that! I mean, stealing their cash is a classy move, I like that, but I'm talking about _really_ sticking it to 'em, make them regret treating you like some piece of trash over the years!", Trinette unbuckled her and Seamus's seatbelts; the cab had pulled up to the modest townhouse Cyril had bought for them in the Bronx.

"Yeah, but what? My work as a field agent sucked, I never really did any real covert ops stuff, I suck at fighting...and Archer, Lana, and Ray are all well-trained and have so much more experience..." Cyril unloaded the bags from the trunk of the taxi.

Trinette, holding Seamus's hand, stood on the stoop of their new home, and pulled out her thick, black contacts book from her handbag.

"Shh, relax, baby, you're with Trinette now, and momma's got a _lot_ of people who owe her a _lot_ of big favors."

Cyril looked up at the mother of his only child, a wicked smile spread across his face.


	5. Diamonds Are For Idiots

Chapter Five: Diamonds Are For Idiots

Archer had broken the news about Lana's twins' paternity to Malory soon after Lana's most recent ultrasound; unsurprisingly, the 5th ultrasound (which he accompanied her to, much to Ray's annoyance) didn't reveal any pig-like features on either baby, and, even less surprisingly, Malory was less than happy about the news.

"YOU UNBELIEVABLE JACKASS! ONLY YOU COULD BE SO STUPID AS TO KNOCK UP SOMEONE WITHOUT EVEN HAVING SEX WITH HER!", Malory screamed at Archer, who was dodging the priceless artifacts his mother was throwing at him off her bookshelf.

"Well, SHIT, Mother! I didn't think that your stupid Nazi scientist you keep in the basement would sell my _mandatory_, ISIS-protected semen sample to fund his newfound cocaine habit! And I _especially_ didn't think that my ex-girlfriend and fellow ISIS agent would use said stolen semen sample to knock herself up while she was, presumably, thinking of me, and I **super extra** didn't think that my sperm would be so goddamned potent that said ex-girlfriend would get knocked up with identical TWIN BOYS, Mother!", Archer yelled from behind his hiding place behind the giant conference table.

"I-well, I guess you do have a point...", Malory trailed off, lowering the Zuni fertility statue in her hand. She dropped the potential (and ironic) projectile, and became silent, thinking.

Archer stood up and looked at his mother after a few moments of calm.

"Mother...? Are you done practicing your curveball, or what?", he asked, approaching her desk cautiously.

Malory, taking a deep breath, opened the locked drawer in her desk, brought out two items and placed them on top of her desk before her son, before pouring herself a tumbler of Glengoolie Red.

Archer's eyes widened; it was Bub's engagement ring, and the small, sterling silver baby rattle that Woodhouse gave to them the night she gave birth to her only child.

"Mother...what-"

Cutting him off with a wave of her hand, Malory walked over to the floor to ceiling window overlooking Manhattan.

"You know, Sterling, I had a feeling that that Katya Whats-her-nova wasn't the right woman for you, and it turns out, I was right. But I've known Lana Kane for over fifteen years, and, despite what I've said about her aloud, I've always had a hunch that she might be the only other woman aside from me in this wretched, god-forsaken world that had the strength and ability to shape you into the best man you can possibly be, and keep you strong and steadfast..."

Malory sniffled away a tear, and turned to Archer.

"You know what you need to do now, Sterling. Do the right thing. You two have my blessing", she raised her glass and smiled, nodding towards the velvet ring box.

"Mother...are you serious?", Archer said, astounded as he picked up the fabric-lined jewelery box...he was not expecting today to result in this turn of events.

"Yes, Sterling...please. Go out there and ask Lana to be your bride. Be a good man, and, most importantly, be a good father to those boys...", Malory finished her drink, a pang of remorse for being such a hypocrite extinguished quickly by the libation.

Sterling Malory Archer then pocketed the jewelery box and the silver rattle from the desk, kissed his mother on the cheek, and exited her office without a word.

She poured another glass of scotch with a soft chuckle..."It's about damn time".

The day was late, and most employees had left. Archer walked through ISIS, trying to find Lana, hoping that she hadn't gone home for the day as well.

Finally, he saw her as she walked onto the elevator...the doors closed before he could reach her.

"Goddammit...", he mumbled. Sterling watched the dial above the doors to see where Lana went...it indicated that she was going to-

"-the roof? All right whatever, roof it is", he said as he walked towards the stairwell.

"Shit, that's right...Mother sealed off the stairs a few years ago...", he paused a moment, and got an idea.

Lana, now 6 months into her pregnancy, leaned against the giant air-intake on the roof of ISIS headquarters, rubbing her giant abdomen and watching the late September sun set; she often went up there to think, and, considering her current predicament, she needed all the thinking she could get.

Knowing that she was carrying Archer's babies wasn't as much of a disturbance to her now that the realization set in, but it was more of the _how_ she became pregnant with his children that troubled her. Lana, an atheist, never considered miracles to be an actual thing, but the one in a billion chance that she would be the mother of not only one, but _two_ of Sterling Malory Archer's babies, picked out of thousands of random donors, at that specific sperm bank out of all other sperm banks in the world, was nothing short of a miracle sent from-

"LANAAAAAAA!"

Lana looked up to the sky; she had to squint to see Archer, falling from the sky at an alarming rate.

"Archer...? Holy shit, ARCHER! ALTITUDE! PULL THE RIPCORD!", Lana shouted from the ISIS helicopter pad.

He did as he was told, and, thankfully, drifted gracefully down towards Lana under the deployed parachute.

Archer plopped down on the helicopter landing pad, and, after unbuckling and removing the parachute and goggles, took Lana's hand in his.

He kneeled down on one knee, and looked affectionately into Lana's big green eyes.

"Oh my god...Archer, are you doing what I think you're doing?", she said, happy tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

Archer rolled his eyes and stood up again.

"Well, Lana, if you think that I arranged a fly-over from an official ISIS aircraft, then jumped out of the sky for kicks, and that I'm asking you, right here, right now, to be my wife and make me the happiest goddamned secret agent in the whole wide world while you stand around carrying two of the most kickass babies in human history that also just so happen to be mine, then yes, I'm doing just that!", Archer cleared his throat, and produced the velvet ring box from the zippered pocket of the skydiving suit.

"Now, let's try this again...", he knelt back down to his knee, took Lana's hand in his once more.

"Lana Elena Kane, will you marry me?", Sterling looked up into Lana's eyes.

The setting sun illuminated Lana's face with orange and gold, making her all the more beautiful and reinforcing Sterling's decision.

Lana, speechless and overwhelmed with happiness, took the engagement ring from it's box, put it on her finger, and wrapped her arms around Archer's shoulders as he stood up.

"Yes, Archer...I will...I love you!", she cried as she clung onto him, her protruding stomach pressing between them.

Sterling embraced her back, and swept her off of her feet into a passionate kiss.

He broke their kiss and looked down at Lana's stomach.

"Oh my god, Lana...one of them just kicked me! Ha! They haven't even been born yet, and my kids are already freaking AWESOME!", he proclaimed as he rubbed his hand over her belly, Lana laughing in pure joy.

Sterling kissed his bride to be once more, genuinely happy for the first time in his life.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Bronx, Cyril bounced Seamus on his knee, sitting in the living room of their townhouse, across from their visitors.

"So it's a deal then? You get full access to all of ISIS funds to bankrupt the entire agency and raid their intel, in exchange for you two killing Archer and Lana?"

Barry Dylan and Katya Kassanova nodded, and looked right into Cyril's artificially azure eyes.

"Da, it'll be our pleasure, Mr Figgis. We will assassinate them during their upcoming mission in Tangier, make it seem like an ambush of Moroccan terrorists...I will kill this Lana Kane, and Barry, my love, will exterminate Sterling Archer...clean, surgical, precise", Katya narrowed her glowing red eyes, making Cyril uncomfortable.

Barry leaned back and patted his hand on Katya's leg.

"That's right, Pumpkin Pie", he said grinning at his bionic female counterpart.

"It'll _certainly_ be our pleasure."


	6. Jive Turkey

Chapter Six: Jive Turkey

"Because I _said_ so, Woodhouse! Now get back up there before I start pelting you with cans of cranberry sauce!", Archer scolded at his elderly valet atop a very unsteady ladder.

Woodhouse was hanging Thanksgiving decorations around Sterling's apartment, preparing for their guests.

Lana, now just a week over 7 months pregnant, sat with her feet up, exhausted from moving her stuff out of her old apartment and into Archer's; they had decided to move in together so soon so Sterling could be close by in case Lana went into labor.

"Archer! I told you to quit being so mean to Woodhouse...he's going to be the guardian to our boys, so try to be at least somewhat nice to him, okay?", she said, holding her huge belly.

Archer looked over at his fiancée, annoyed.

"Jesus Lana...you're really against animal cruelty, aren't you?", he sighed in exasperation, and looked back up the ladder to Woodhouse.

"Fine...Sorry, Woodhouse, everything looks great. Thanks", Sterling muttered. His valet smiled, and Lana winked at the old man.

Moments later, the doorbell rang.

Lana shifted her weight around to get out of her chair to answer the door, but Archer hurried over to her and had her sit back down.

"It's all right, Lana...I'll take care of it, you just relax", he rubbed Lana's back affectionately.

"WOODHOUSE! Answer the goddamned door!", he yelled.

Lana stared at him angrily.

"What?"

Later, the staff of ISIS, as well as Malory and Ron Cadillac, gathered around the long dining table. Typically, Archer would loathe having his home filled with his coworkers and his mother, but tonight was a rare exception, and he was actually glad for the gathering.

Pam and Cheryl sat next to each other; Pam had arrived wearing a lobster bib. Her plate was already piled high with hor d'oeuvres, and the main course hadn't been served.

"Geez Pam, you maybe wanna quit shoveling crap into your face like a pig for two seconds?", Cheryl crossed her arms and looked away from her friend, grossed out by the sight.

Pam just flipped her off and kept eating.

Dr Krieger, sitting across from Pam with his crutches leaned against his chair, looked down sadly.

"Aww, Pigly", he said as he wiped a tear from his eye.

Archer, seated at the head of the table next to Lana, stood up, rapping a fork against his glass to call everyone's attention.

"Everyone, before you help yourselves to my food and abuse my toilet," he paused to scowl at Pam, who flipped him off as she shoved a roll in her mouth. "...I-I mean, _we_, have two important announcements", Archer said as he helped Lana stand up.

Cheryl gasped, "Oh my god, you're giving birth to an alien?", she said as she pointed a butter knife at Lana's stomach. Pam, still eating, grabbed the butter knife from her and proceeded to butter another roll. Ray, seated across from Cheryl, next to Krieger, flicked a stray pea at her head.

"What? No...Jesus, everybody shut up. First announcement, Lana and I have picked out names for the kids! We're naming the first one Leon, and the second one Lewis...so yeah, a toast to Leon and Lewis Archer, future badasses!", he said beaming with pride. Lana smiled and put her hand around Archer's waist.

"And the second announcement we have is that we've set our wedding day! We'll be having the wedding at midnight, New Year's Eve , in The Plaza", Lana raised her glass of water with a smug grin, soaking in the astonished looks from her coworkers..."Yuuup, you guys heard right, we booked The FREAKIN' Plaza for New Years Eve!"

Archer laughed along with his pregnant fiancée, "Oh man, you guys look like you're going crazy with jealousy right now, especially you, Mother!"...everyone, including Pam, scowled back at them.

Lana rolled her eyes, "Oh for the love of...you're all invited to the wedding!"

The group of ISIS employees then started applauding the couple; Pam looked up from her plate, and said with her mouth full of cheese and lox, "ish it gunga be catered?", bits of food spattering out with every syllable. Everyone scooted away from Pam, disgusted.

"What?", she asked as she shoved a hunk of cornbread into her mouth.

Later that night, after everyone left, Archer and Lana sat together on the giant white suede couch from her old place, next to the long fireplace, both exhausted from the long day and massive amounts of food.

Sterling, holding Lana from behind, rested his chin on her shoulder and stared into the flames.

"I gotta be honest with you, Lana, I never pictured us like this; engaged, living together, with twins on the way...but I'm gonna have to admit, this feels right", he said as he breathed in the scent of Lana's hair. He casually rubbed her tummy, and smiled when he felt one of his boys kick in response.

She smiled, and leaned her back against Archer with a happy sigh.

"I know what you mean...I couldn't be happier".

* * *

Miles away, in the Bronx, Trinette, Cyril, and Seamus sat around the small dining table in their house, having a Thanksgiving meal of Chinese take out.

Cyril looked up from his plate of fried rice and crab rangoons to shoot Trinette a dirty look across the table.

"Hey, sorry, I shoulda told ya, I don't cook! It's not my fault Happy Tiger Express is the only restaurant open on freaking Thanksgiving!", she said defensively as she spooned some orange chicken on Seamus's plate.

Seamus just looked at both of his parents then started eating.

"Well, I guess it's still better than the last Thanksgiving dinner I had...thank you, Trinette", Cyril said as he remembered the putrid frozen TV dinner he had last year.

"Yeah, don't mention it...happy Thanksgiving, ya big lug", Trinette smirked, taking a gulp of cheap wine.

Cyril smiled, "You too, Trinette..."

* * *

Meanwhile, in Russia, Katya Kassanova cleaned her Dragunov SVD at her desk in her KGB office. Barry, using the telecom screen behind her, was looking at an aerial map of Tangier, using his bionic eyes to scan the image quickly. He stopped when he spotted an interesting area of the map.

"Oh ho ho! Would that be a fitting place to kill Archer, Barry? Yes it would, Other Barry. Yes it would"

"Barry! What did I tell you about talking to that Other Barry?", Katya said over her shoulder.

"Sorry Pumpkin Pie...", Barry apologized as he uploaded the coordinates for the location of interest into his memory bank.

He chuckled to himself, thinking "Oh yeah, this is gonna be fucking epic".


	7. (Don't) Let It Come Down

Note: Long chapter, but it's worth reading the whole thing, I swear!

Chapter Seven: (Don't) Let It Come Down

Lana Kane, lying on her side in a modified prone position, peered down the eyepiece of the spotter's scope, scanning the streets of Tangier for their target. Archer, behind the Barrett M82 rifle a few feet next to her, carved "Leon & Lewis was here" into the wall of the bell tower they were sitting in, laughing at how funny it would be for one of his sons to return to that very spot some day on their own sniper mission and see that.

"Archer, psst, I think I see him!", Lana patted his boot to catch his attention. He shouldered the rifle, removed the lens cap from his scope, and looked to where Lana had indicated.

"Oh man, no wonder we got assigned to shoot this guy...it's to put him out of his misery! I've never seen someone so hideous!", Archer exclaimed after spotting their target, a maniacal dictator.

"I know...if he wasn't such an evil bastard, I'd almost feel bad for him for being a burn victim", Lana said as she calculated the wind speed.

Archer removed his eye from the rifle scope and looked to his fiancée, "Woah, wait, he's a burn victim? Shit, maybe we ought to use something a bit heavier than a 50 cal...guy might survive this shit too..."

Lana shifted around on her side uncomfortably on the cold, hard surface of the bell tower floor, and put her eye back to the scope; it was now mid-December, and she was due to have the twins any day. The only reason she agreed to go on the mission in her state was that she knew Archer was a great sniper, but knew he gets distracted easily...

"...Archer, are you gonna take the shot? Arch-oh what the shit, honey?", Lana looked away from the scope to look at Sterling, who was drawing circles of water from his canteen around a small green beetle, trapping the insect.

"Huh? Oh right...the mercy killing of elephant man..."

Archer reshouldered the weapon, looked down the scope, chambered a round, and waited for Lana's call.

The couple, dressed in traditional Moroccan clothing as to blend in better with the crowds, stared down at their target, and Lana held her breath, waited for the precisely optimal moment, and whispered, "fire".

Archer squeezed the trigger, successfully taking down one of the world's most evil dictators with a single bullet. Down on the street level,the ruler's entourage of guards scrambled, searching for the sniper.

"Well babe, that's our cue to get the hell out of here...you doing ok?", Archer casually asked Lana as he quickly disassembled the rifle and put it back in it's case.

"Yeah, I'm all ri-oof, wait...ouch. Oh shit, um, Archer?", Lana cringed and held her belly.

"What? What's wrong? Oh shit, did you knock over the canteen? That was mostly grappa, you probably shouldn't drink any..."

"No...Archer, this wasn't the canteen; my water just broke. And we're way the shit up here in a bell tower surrounded by an army of surly, murderous guards...not-ouch! Not exactly ideal...", Lana forced herself to stand up, taking off her red hijab to soak up the fluids around her lap.

"Oh shit is right, Lana! Fuck, we need to get you the hell out of here NOW!", Archer scooped up Lana in his arms, and started running down the stairwell, leaving behind their weapons.

Three guards appeared through the doorway below; Archer drew his side arm and fired a single shot into each guards' chest, dropping them instantly. Lana moaned in pain from the contractions in his arms.

"Hold it in, Lana! We need to get somewhere safe!", Archer pleaded as he shot two more guards in their faces in the crowded, dusty marketplace below the bell tower. Scanning the area quickly, he saw an unattended motorcycle with a sidecar attached to it. The engine was on, and the gas gauge was reading full.

"God, you can't even _write_ this sorta shit!", Archer said enthusiastically.

He ran over to the motorcycle, laid Lana down in the sidecar, hopped on the bike, and drove down into an alleyway at top speed.

"OOOOWWWW, dammit dammit dammit...SHHIIIIITTTT!", Lana cried from the sidecar, her contractions becoming more frequent and more forceful by the minute.

"Dammit, Lana, try to hold it in! Just, I dunno, think about the desert or something...", Archer said, navigating expertly through narrow passageways, being chased by more guards on motorcycles.

"Ow...goddammit Archer, it's not like trying to hold your bladder, it doesn't work that way...OOHH WOW, OW, OW **OW** **OOWW**!"

Archer drew his pistol again, and fired three more times behind him, taking out two of the three guards; only one guard remained, and he was gaining on them quickly.

"Shit! I'm out of bullets!", Archer tried pushing the old motorcycle to go faster, but the RPMs were already close to redlining. He banked sharply to the left into a narrow side street, and the guard whizzed past, missing the turn. A loud crash was heard behind them as the couple sped off in the opposite direction.

"Woo hoo hoo! Now _that's_ an evasive maneuver, right Lana?", he boasted, looking down to the sidecar to check on Lana.

"Yeah, Archer, total badass moves...**NOW WILL YOU PLEASE FIND A SAFE PLACE FOR ME TO SQUEEZE OUT THESE GODDAMNED BABIES?!**", she screamed at his face.

Archer pulled over, and saw an old, abandoned bar...the faded sign read "Reggie's Bar".

"Holy shit, no way...", he exclaimed as he carried Lana into the dusty old bar where he himself was born 37 years ago.

He took off his white cotton jellabiya, and laid it out over the bar, and set Lana down over the fabric. He rummaged through the drawers of the bar, and found a stack of old, rat-chewed bar rags, a sharp paring knife, and a key with a tag attached to it that had in Woodhouse's shaky handwriting, "medicine cabinet".

Setting the rags and knife near Lana's feet, Archer grabbed a bottle of ancient vodka from the shelf behind the bar and looked around for any locked cabinets.

Lana leaned her back up against the pillar on the bar, and started doing breathing exercises to help with the labor pains.

"Archer...the medicine cabinet is-ow! It's down there!", she pointed down to a trapdoor in the floor near her, behind the bar, with "Medicine" carved into the old wood.

"Dammit Woodhouse, I swear to god, if this is an old heroin stash, I'm going to make you eat a whole plate of spiderwebs...", he said under his breath as kneeled down to unlock the trapdoor.

The old door creaked open, and revealed an actual, old Royal Army Medical Corp box, fully stocked, as well as several bottles of isopropyl alcohol. There was also several hundred rounds bullets, including a box of armor-piercing rounds and two Thompson submachine guns with eight, fully loaded drum clips.

Archer grabbed the two guns, the med kit, and dumped the rubbing alcohol on his hands. He took a quick gulp of the vodka, and lifted up Lana's jilbab robe.

Archer, never having assisted in a birth before, was unsure of what to do, but figured he could wing it...he's seen this in movies a bunch of times, how hard could it be?

"All right, Lana, PUSH! C'mon, you're doing great! Man...those kegel exercises really paid off, huh? Jesus, it's a tragedy that all this is gonna be...just fucking _destroyed_ after this!", Archer looked up from Lana's nethers. She responded by screaming in agony and grabbing the wood of the polished bar so hard, it started to splinter.

Archer, taking the message, ducked his head back down to monitor the progress, and went back to work.

* * *

Three hours passed, and Lana had given birth, successfully, to their twin sons. She held Lewis while she laid on the bar, propped up against the pillar, and Archer held Leon. He had wrapped up both boys in the colorful, silk hajibs that he found folded underneath the bar, using a green scarf for Lewis and a dark blue one for Leon, as to tell the boys apart.

Archer held his newborn son close to his chest, and he wrapped his free arm around Lana's shoulders.

"Oh man, Lana, you were amazing...I'm also amazed that that big bloody thing that plopped out after Lewis wasn't a blob monster...Jesus, how can the British _eat _that shit?", he wrinkled his nose at the thought, looking at Leon, who stirred and gave a tiny smile.

"Right? This kid knows what I'm talking about...I love you, Lana"

Lana, exhausted, smiled up at Archer, "I love you too..."

Just then, the doors of the bar were kicked down; a whole troop of guards had busted in, carrying assault rifles, firing wildly into the bar.

"FUCK, _really_? Can't I just have a quiet, tender moment with my brand new family?! C'mon!", Archer exclaimed, handing Leon to Lana, who had ducked behind the bar with Lewis.

Sterling grabbed one of the Tommy guns, switched it to fully-auto, and fired rapidly at the intruding guards, cutting through them like weeds.

He grabbed two more drums of bullets, clipped them to his belt, and handed the extra gun down to Lana, who was cradling their crying sons and trying her best to shield their tiny ears from the gunfire.

Archer rolled his eyes, irritated. "FUCKING GREAT, YOU MADE THEM CRY! NOW I GOTTA DEAL WITH THAT...DAMMIT!", he yelled as he shot down another wave of guards.

"Paging Dr Spock! Oh, hi, yeah where's the chapter that covers **ASSHOLE-INDUCED COLIC**?" he popped off the empty drum clip and replaced it with a full one from his belt.

Archer took cover behind a pillar, his back facing the entrance, waiting for another wave of guards. After a few seconds without any commotion, he looked around, and saw no one coming in through the doors.

"Shit, that was quick...", he said to himself. He walked outside and looked up and down the quiet street; not a single sign of life.

After being sure the attack was over, Archer lowered his gun, and, turning to go back into Reggie's Bar to check on Lana and his sons, suddenly felt an abnormally-strong, icy cold hand grab him by the throat.

"Hiya, buddy! Kinda rude of ya not to invite your old pal Barry to the baby shower, don't cha think?", Barry said, tightening his metal grip around Archer's throat.

Sterling's face was turning red, and Barry lifted him off the ground by his neck with one hand.

"Giving me the old silent treatment, huh? I'd think that you'd at least have a 'hello' mustered up for me...strange, you're usually _so_ chatty..."

Archer, struggling to remain conscious and still holding the Tommy gun, managed to fire a few rounds at Barry's foot, but they simply ricocheted off in random directions.

"Ha, nope, heh heh, 'ping'! Why can't you people ever remember that I'm a _cyborg_?", Barry dug his fingers and thumb into Archer's jugular arteries, causing him to drop the gun; Sterling's face was now a deep crimson, his body's movements weakening.

"Because, asshole, you are just so fucking easy to forget."

Lana, wearing Archer's bloody jellabiya, emerged from the doors of the bar, carrying her twin sons using the empty holsters from her two TEC 9s to sling them from their silk scarves, like hammocks, their legs held tight and secure against their mother by a roll of gauze wrapped around her. Lana pointed the second Tommy gun at Barry, and stepped out into the street.

"Hey you! Congrats on the babies! Not exactly Barry's cup of tea, but, to each their own", Barry said as he continued choking Archer, who's near-lifeless body was still clawing madly at Barry's bionic arm.

"Drop him, prick, or you're dead", Lana stared into the cyborg's cold brown, mechanical eyes.

Barry, chuckling again, tossed Sterling's limp body like a ragdoll down the empty street.

He laid completely still after he bounced and came to a stop on the cobblestone road.

"Oops, oh well, guess you were just a tad too late to save your baby daddy, hot stuff...but hey, if it's any consolation, you and your little mochachino bambinos there won't be all alone for long...", a psychotic, mechanoid smile plastered on his face.

Lana, burning with pure hatred, fired the Tommy gun several times into Barry's chest.

"Ha, again, dollface, with the forgetting about...me...beeeeeing a...cyyyyybbooooorg"

Barry slumped down, his eyes white. The steaming hot exit wounds caused by the armor-piercing rounds in the drum clip produced wisps of white smoke; the chemical stench of a burned, decimated CPU lingered heavily in the crisp, brisk air.

Lana, assessing that Barry was finally dead, dropped the gun and ran over to Archer's lifeless body, panicking.

"Oh no...no no no...oh Christ, no Archer...please, please be all right...", she turned his body over so he was lying on his back. His blue eyes were frozen open; his chest was still, and the color of his face was a pale shade of purple, the blood vessels near the surface of his skin burst and bruised. His neck, mangaled, appeared deflated.

Lana, tears pouring from her eyes, pinched his nose and started performing CPR on him as a final act of desperation, refusing to accept that Sterling Archer, father to her children and her fiancée, was indeed gone for good.

"You...like kissing the dead, no?"

Katya emerged from the shadows of a nearby alleyway, pointing her Makarov pistol at Lana, her glowing red eyes fixed on her. She started approaching her and Sterling's lukewarm body slowly.

Lana, still distraught, looked up from Archer, and reached for the Tommy gun...both of which were still next to Barry's dead bionic body.

"It appears that you are...boshmoi, what is the word...da, that's it: fucked", Katya pulled back the slide of the semi-auto pistol, chambering a round, and aimed the weapon at Lana.

"Eye for an eye, Ms Kane...goodbye."

She closed her eyes tightly, and shielded Leon and Lewis's tiny faces, not wanting them to witness what was coming.

The sharp sound of a bullet being fired wasn't heard; the sounds of a scuffle, followed by a strange buzzing sound, however, caused Lana to open her eyes.

Archer, blood oozing from the corners of his mouth and ears, had crawled up Katya, and, clinging to her shoulder, had stabbed the sharp handle of the sterling silver baby rattle deep into the cyborg's chest, causing her hard drive to scratch to a halt.

"Don't...you...fffuck with...my fffamily", Archer croaked out of his damaged throat, as him and the Russian cyborg dropped to the ground.

Lana hurried over to Sterling, who was face down, coughing up blood, his hand still clenched around the baby rattle protruding out of Katya Kassanova's lifeless, sparking, smoking corpse.

"Holy shit, Sterling! You're...you're alive!", Lana said in relief and utter amazement as she knelt down, pushing Katya's body away to hold his bloodied head in her lap.

Archer, gasping for air roughly through his mouth, looked up into Lana's tear-streaked, smiling face.

"Lana...our sssons. Are-", he turned his face away to cough up a large clot of blood, "...are they o...okay?", he grabbed her hand and held it over his heart.

"Yes, honey...they're perfectly fine. Just hang in there, Sterling, I'll call in an emergency medical evac..."

"Awessssome...", Archer smiled, then passed out, resting his head in Lana's lap.

The distant sound of the approaching helicopter mingled with the soft, happy yawning noises coming from their newborn sons was the sweetest music either of them had ever heard.


	8. Icing the Wounds

Chapter Eight: Icing the Wounds

Sterling and Lana walked through the snowy pathways of Central Park on the morning of New Years Eve, pushing their twin boys along in their stroller.

Archer's neck, fractured from the incident in Tangier two weeks ago, was still in a brace, and he couldn't speak for very long without having his crushed larynx flare up in pain. The color in his face had returned to normal, and he was cleared of any irreversible brain damage from being dead (yet again).

Lana wrapped her arm around Archer's shoulders as he pulled the collar of his heavy black wool coat tighter to his body over the thick neck brace, using his other gloved hand to push the stroller. He had been abnormally sensitive to the cold since they had come back home, but was getting better every day.

"So, Lana...how does it feel knowing you'll be...be marrying a Highlander soon?", Archer asked quietly through chattering teeth. He stopped pushing the stroller in front of a park bench, breathing a bit heavy. His strength wasn't completely back yet from the multiple contusions he received from being thrown nearly 500 yards against a cobblestone road, but the daily walks through the park was therapeutic.

Lana laughed at his boastfulness, even in his weakened state. She set the locks on the wheels of the stroller, and sat down on the bench next to Archer.

The couple had to cancel their New Years Eve/wedding reservation at the coveted Plaza, since they had to pay for several medical expenses and needed the huge amount of extra money from the refund to avoid debt. An unexplained blip in the computer network at ISIS had kept their salaries being deposited in their accounts for the month, although they were reassured they would be paid soon as the system error was fixed.

"It's awesome, honey...a modest wedding up in the Catskills then a honeymoon in the Maldives in April sounds perfect. I think I might need to start going to therapy before then, though, because I might be a borderline necrophiliac thanks to your constant reanimations...", she teased as she snuggled into Sterling's chest. He smiled and drew Lana in closer, appreciating the body heat.

Leon and Lewis, bundled up in their navy blue and dark green coats, slept soundly underneath the thick blanket that their grandmother, Mallory, had given them when they had all returned. Sterling and Lana watched their tiny, sleeping sons as snow began falling gracefully from the sky.

Archer closed his eyes happily; he had finally gotten the tender moment with his brand new family he had wanted back in Morocco.

* * *

"Whaddya _mean_, Archer and Lana are still alive? What...and Barry and Katya are dead? Oh, god...", Cyril yelled into the phone, running a hand through his dyed chestnut brown hair.

"Da, I am sorry, Mr Figgis...they were last seen in Central Park yesterday morning", Boris, the KGB assistant, said regretfully.

Cyril paced up and down the hardwood floors of his townhouse's hallway, his grip tightening around the cell phone.

"I gave those mechanical pricks full access to ISIS funds, all of the agency's intel, and they have the...the _onions_ to not only fail their mission, but to die?", Cyril shouted as he slammed a fist into the wall...he winced and shook his wrist at the pain.

"Mr Figgis, although our comrades may be gone, the KGB made sure to make good use of our access to ISIS funding...", Boris clicked a button on Katya's old desk, causing a vodka dispenser to pop up. Boris grinned and poured himself a drink.

"We now have...much technology, thanks to your assistance...say buddy, you said you do not have employment anymore, and you are broke now, yes?", he asked as he dunked his feet into the new heated foot bath beneath the desk.

"...yeah, I'm broke now thanks to you people, and I have a family to provide for, so...yeah, not exactly ideal. What's your point?", Cyril said, depressed, as he pulled a Belgian chocolate from his pocket.

"Then I may have solution to your problem. Call back tomorrow for further instruction."

Boris hung up, and turned on his new massaging chair; the new head of the KGB was enjoying the increased budget and the subsequent luxuries that came with it. Making Cyril defect to Russia and recruiting him as the comptroller of the KGB would assure that the money would keep coming.

* * *

Later that evening, while New York City rang in the new year, Dr Krieger opened the two large refrigerator boxes that his Moroccan "associate" left for him in the dumpsters in the alley behind ISIS headquarters...the remains of Barry lied in one, Katya in the other, a majority of their computerized components still intact.

He sighed at the sight of his greatest accomplishment destroyed and discarded, and started putting the metallic parts into the cart next to him.

"Just need to turn this crisis into an opportunity...this is for you, Chimply...", he choked back a tear, and continued in his task.


	9. Meet the Archers?

Chapter Nine: Meet the Archers...?

The warm, early spring sun rose, illuminating Archer and Lana's bedroom. Archer, who had made a nearly-full recovery from the attack in Tangier, yawned, stretched his neck and shoulders (the brace had come off the previous week, thankfully, but his neck still ached in the mornings sometimes) and turned over to face Lana, the mother of his sons and, in six hours, his wife.

Lana, still sleeping, mumbled incoherently and shifted onto her back. Sterling reached over her carefully to grab his bottle of rum off the night stand, and took a contemplative sip while he gazed fondly at her sleeping form.

Marrying Lana was, by far, the most exciting, thrilling, and terrifying thing he's had to face in his entire, espionage-filled lifetime; his first four months as a father to Leon and Lewis was a breeze in comparison for Archer. They had no real history together, no resentment towards their father, they had nothing but unconditional love for him, but Lana...he was sensing a lot of hesitance and something else he couldn't quite identify brewing underneath her surface the past few weeks. Lana said she loved him, and he believed her, but some days he wondered if she just wanted to go through the motions to assure that the kids would grow up with a father in their life, or just someone to take care of them at all. He knew, deep down, that he would've been there for Lana's children, whether or not they were his, and whether or not they were even married...but the ass-backwards way that he fathered them gave him all the more reason to be in it for the long-haul.

Sterling, sitting up in bed, took another pull off the bottle, allowing the amber-colored liquid to burn his nearly-healed throat and quiet his apprehensions. He ran his hand through his hair, and looked at his alarm clock; it was five minutes before 6:00am...the buzzer would be sounding soon.

He swung his feet off the side of the bed with another yawn, took one last gulp of rum, put on his bathrobe, and made his way towards the kitchen to make the boys' formula. He looked at the clock on his microwave as he heated his sons' breakfast, and, from down the hallway, heard them start crying for their feeding at exactly 5:58am, same as every morning.

Archer smiled to himself at how it would always irritate Lana, a notoriously-light sleeper, to have her last two minutes of rest before the alarm sounded taken away by Leon and Lewis' cries...they were quickly learning to annoy their mother, just like their dear ol' Dad.

He chuckled to himself when he heard Lana swear, throw something at the alarm clock the second it started buzzing, followed by loud snoring.

"All right, settle down, I'm here...bottles all around, guys", Archer said as he set his half-empty bottle of Santa Teresa 1796 rum down on the small table next to the rocking chair in the nursery, alongside the two bottles of formula, and cradled both babies in his left arm.

Once he negotiated the two boys under his arm into a comfortable position and they started on their bottles, he relaxed in the antique rocking chair and used his free hand to carefully reach for his own bottle. He looked down at his sons; their soft, thin, black hair had started coming in recently, and their bright, aquamarine eyes shined in the early morning sun coming in their bedroom window. He couldn't help but smile at their little olive-skinned faces, which were nearly completely hidden behind the bottles.

Woodhouse, who slept in the room across from the nursery, was watching quietly from the doorway, wiped away a sentimental tear, happy to see Sterling being such a good father. He remembered feeding Archer himself when he was only a few months old, in the very same chair. He sometimes worried when Lana went on missions without Sterling; he would hate to see another generation of Archers raised without two loving, caring parents...

"Dammit, Woodhouse, are you just gonna hang around staring into space on my wedding day, or are you gonna go make breakfast for me and my almost-wife?", Archer scolded, picking up Leon and Lewis to set them back down in their respective cribs.

"And go wake up Lana already, it's her turn to change these guys...ugh, man, they smell like they've been eating kufta and bacon grease all night..."

Woodhouse looked down, his reminiscing interrupted, and, with a heavy sigh, started walking down the hallway to begin his tasks...after a quick fix to calm his nerves, of course.

Later, Lana and Archer ate breakfast out on the terrace, with Leon and Lewis in the playpen nearby. They had to leave for their wedding up in the Catskills soon.

Lana looked up at Archer from her grapefruit, "Are you sure it'll be okay to leave the boys here with Woodhouse for a whole week while we go on our honeymoon? His heroin addiction seems a lot more...involved lately."

She nodded over to the valet, who was scratching his neck and fidgeting, his trembling hand barely keeping the pitcher of bloody marys steady.

"Well what would you rather do, Lana? Haul a couple of hungry, pooping, screaming 4-month olds with us for our week long, romantic honeymoon in the Maldives, trust Smack'Ums the Limey here to do the same damn job he's been doing for decades, or, and I swear to god I'll call child protective services if you say yes to this, or leave them in the filthy clutches of Mother and Ron?", Archer said as he downed his bloody mary...he promised himself to never subjugate his sons to the living hell that Malory was guaranteed to provide; they hadn't even been unsupervised around her yet, much less left in her care.

Lana mulled over the options, and eyed Woodhouse.

"Ever consider a visit to a methadone clinic?", she said with a cocked eyebrow, stabbing her fork into the rind of her grapefruit for emphasis.

Woodhouse's eye twitched at the idea of going through withdrawals.

"Diiiidn't think so," she turned back to Archer, "Well honey, maybe we can have someone come by to check up on things while we're gone, just to make sure nothing happens?"

"Yeah sure, that'd be all right, but who, Lana?"

* * *

"**NO**. No, no no no...no fucking way, nuh-uh, NO!", Archer protested.

"Aww, c'mon, I'm great with babies! It's just like dealing with baby calves, only smaller and ya get less hooves to the face", Pam said, standing in the doorway of the apartment. Lana had called her to come by to give her a run down of the boys' routine and the layout of the home.

"Plus I can make sure Woodhouse over there doesn't pull accidentally pull a Jim Morrison when he's giving the little dudes' their bath...trust me, it'll be fine. I'll go to your wedding, then, after the reception and you guys can take off for your flight, I'll come back here for an hour or so to make sure everything's all right...can I come inside now?", Pam said as she tried inching her way around Archer, who was doing his best to block the front door.

"Archer, just let her in...we should've left half an hour ago, and this bullshit is not helping", Lana said as she struggled to put Leon into a dark blue onesie, as Lewis was crying and simultaneously trying to pull the onesie off his brother.

"But...but...dammit, fine, Pam, you can babysit our babysitter...but if anything in here is messed up, misplaced, stolen, or anything other than the state I left it in, _especially my goddamned kids_, I'll have Mother send you on a mission where you'll pose as a circus bear, and I'll call in some favors to have you sold to a butcher shop, where you'll be ground up into shitty Yugoslavian sausage, and sold at a discount to starving street urchins!", he cleared his throat, and moved out of her way, keeping a close eye on her as she entered the apartment.

Pam, ignoring the threat, rolled her eyes and scooted by him over to the couch to help Lana dressing Leon.

"Leon...hey, I had a blue ribbon 4H pig named Leon when I was a kid...Dad turned him into Easter dinner though-"

"**PAM! JESUS!** _MY KIDS ARE NOT PIGS, NOR ARE THEY SWINE-LIKE IN NATURE NOW, OR AT ANY TIME IN THEIR SHORT ASS LIVES_! Leon here, a total badass, is named after Burt Reynolds' middle name, and, before you tell us all about whatever 4H monstrosity you just so happened to have named Lewis, _he's_ named after Lana's dead war hero father, you idiot, so no more drawing comparisons to my kids and your STUPID GODDAMNED FARM ANIMALS!", Archer bellowed...he started wheezing and he cringed at his painful, still-healing larynx.

Pam and Lana looked to each other and back to Archer inquisitively, who was now having a coughing fit, keeled over and holding his sore throat.

"So...how's that crushed trachea doing, buddy?", Lana said as she lifted an eyebrow, watching Archer as he took a big pull off his flask, holding up a finger as he drank. Lewis looked over at his keeled over father and laughed, letting go of Leon's clothes.

Archer, who had finally stopped coughing, took another swig off his flask and returned it to his jacket pocket.

"It's doing fantastic, Lana, thanks for asking...and Lewis?", he pointed at his giggling infant son.

"You're pear-shaped. But I love you, and I made you, so that shit is awesome...pear up, buddy."

Both boys were now giggling, and Archer started tickling their sides and laughed along with them. Lana just pinched the bridge of her nose, annoyed.

"Idiots in triplicate...wonderful."

* * *

The two and a half hour drive up into the Catskills was quiet and peaceful, something that both Archer and Lana desperately needed. Just being alone together in silence without their kids and without worrying about work for a week was a vacation in itself for the tired parents, who pulled up to the restored old carriage barn venue, dubbed _The Peach Tree_, where the wedding was to take place in two hours.

They checked in, unpacked their wedding clothes, and began preparing in their separate rooms for the ceremony at noon.

The guests were already gathering outside near the catering gazebos outside about an hour later. Sterling, dressed in his black tux, looked outside from his changing room window, drinking from his flask once more, deep in thought.

This was it, the big day...the day that would permanently end the phase of his life as a jet-setting, womanizing bachelor. He loved that part of his life, **A LOT**, and, although he wouldn't dare tell anyone out of fear of Lana finding out and hating him all over again, a part of him wished that phase was still happening...really, the only thing that kept him faithful to his decision to go through with the marriage was not only how much he loved Lana, but the fact he was the father of the two coolest, funniest, cutest, and smartest babies he's ever known, and couldn't bear to risk having them not be a part of his life. If it wasn't for him discovering that he's their father, he wouldn't have proposed to Lana, and if he hadn't done that, he wouldn't have had Lana nearby to shoot down Barry, and if she hadn't done that and given him CPR...well, he'd be dead.

Sterling pulled the thin, silver chain from under his shirt, and held the silver baby rattle attached to it that he used to kill his former fiancée-turned-murderous cyborg, Katya. He felt...conflicted, having to stab the woman he was previously engaged to in order to save his current fiancée and their sons, but he didn't regret a thing.

He didn't regret a single goddamned thing.

Archer smiled to himself after coming to that conclusion, having finally knew he was ready to say goodbye to his former lifestyle and settle down to be a husband and father for good. He pocketed his flask, did one last spot check in the mirror, and left the changing room to meet his bride at the altar.

Lana, meanwhile, was in her own changing room, trying to adjust her bustier properly to flatten her small amount of remaining pregnancy fat. She had lost nearly all of the weight she had gained over the twins' gestation through a lot of exercise and strict dieting, and was grateful to feel and look like her old self again. But she still felt...not totally right. She just chalked it up to wedding day jitters, and continued in her preparations.

As she fixed her hair in the mirror, someone knocked on the door and it creaked open.

Without looking to see who had entered the room, Lana sighed and said flatly, "Archer, hon, you know it's bad luck to steal a peek of the bride's ass before the ceremony..."

Malory, who had let herself in the door behind Lana, stood against the wall and cocked an eyebrow.

"Lana, I hope you two don't talk that way around my grandsons...god knows they'll be just like their father and their first word will be 'shit'...", she said as she closed the door behind her.

"Oh...hi, Malory...", Lana turned around, lifting the hem of her long wedding dress to maneuver the tight corner in front of the antique vanity to face her.

She knew that having Malory as her mother-in-law was going to be difficult, but she figured it may eventually have some perks...like perhaps taking over as head of ISIS one day, for example. But that day might not come for another twenty years...but she just turned 33 last month...

"Ron is out there arguing with the caterers about the quality of the shrimp, so I'm going to keep this brief, and I don't want what I'm about to tell you to leave this room...", Malory took a seat on the cushioned bench near the door.

"In the almost-sixteen years I've known you, Lana, I've watched you evolve from a tree-hugging, rebellious, parentless college student into the deadly, sophisticated master spy you are today. I never quite anticipated you also becoming the mother of my son's children in such a...unique way, but, this is the hand that was dealt to you, and you have handled it with a grace and sense of maturity I never thought you capable of. Lana, I'm proud to call you my daughter-in-law" Malory hugged Lana briefly, then stepped away.

"Like I said, that doesn't leave this room..."

She peered out the window over Lana's shoulder, and spotted Ron grabbing hor d'oeuvres from the catering trays and stuffing them into his jacket pockets.

"Excuse me, dear...**RON!** You better pray to god that brie didn't stain the lining of that tuxedo...!", Malory nagged as she went back outside.

Lana, her face completely blank, had just been accepted into the Archer family by the sole matriarch. She began feeling...frightened? Scared? Oh Christ, she was going to be Lana _Archer_...and she had _two _kids that were Sterling's...it wasn't too long ago that this was her...worst nightmare...

...she regretted everything. Every. Single. Goddamned. Thing.

* * *

"...take Sterling Malory Archer to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to-"

"NOOOOOOOPE!"

"Hey, woah...wait, where are you _going_?! Lana?! LAAAAAAAAAANAA!"

She snapped to, and saw that she was running, barefoot, her white silk high heels, bouquet, and veil dropped in the field behind her, along with a very dumbfounded Archer, standing at the altar, alone.

She didn't stop running. She realized what she was doing. She felt the heft of her Walther P99 in the holster strapped around her garter, so she knew there was at least some protection...she bolted towards the forest, scared shitless, but too guilty and embarrassed to stop now.

"I'm sorry, Sterling...! I...I...can't...do...this...!", Lana yelled between breaths over her shoulder.

Archer chased after her, his emotions scatter-gunned across the whole human spectrum; happiness that he wasn't the one making a scene for once, fear of having to raise his sons alone, anger at his trust being violated, love for seeing Lana running free through a sunny meadow on a warm spring day, sadness at the realization that the woman he loved was running away from him, hatred for Lana betraying him, and hurt by his heart cracking apart with every step she took away from him...all of these pumped thick through his blood, as he pursued his bride down the grassy hill, his whole world attempting to escape.

All the wedding guests could do was watch the bizarre turn of events unfold before them.

Ray (who wasn't conducting the ceremony) lit up a Dunhill, stuck the filtered end into his long ivory cigarette holder, and took a long draw, watching Archer chasing after Lana into the woods below.

"Gonna have to admit, I did _not_ see that one coming."

Malory, who was standing next to Ron, calmly pulled out her cell phone, and dialed a number.

"It's me. We have a runner, into the woods, and it's not my idiot son, surprisingly. Yes. You know what to do."

She ended the call, returned the phone to her purse, and handed the handbag to Ron. She walked to their nearby Cadillac Eldorado, and pulled a shotgun out from underneath the backseat, and walked back to Ron.

Ron, completely bewildered, kept his hands up while his wife grabbed his keys out of his pocket, wiped away the bits of smashed brie and crackers, grabbed her purse back from him, and went back to the car, and started the engine.

As she peeled off down the hill, shotgun in the passenger seat, she pulled out her flask and took a large sip.

"Hang in there, Sterling...Mother is on the way."

The Eldorado bumped on it's shocks as she got reached the gravel access road leading into the forest, searching for not only her two most valuable agents, but two members of her family.


	10. Operation: Tom Petty

Chapter Ten: Operation Tom Petty

Lana crouched behind a mossy boulder, trying to catch her breath. Her wedding dress was tattered and covered in sweat, mud, and dirt; she had torn the long train off a mile into her escape, and donned her torn slip instead, her pistol still secured to her thigh.

Her mind, racing in panic, reevaluated the series of decisions she had made leading her up to that exact moment in time...she started to feel tiny pinpricks of tears developing in the corners of her eyes, feeling overwhelmingly guilty for trying to abandon Archer and their sons, but she was so deep into her getaway already, how could she possibly ever explain herself and regain the trust of everyone involved?

* * *

Meanwhile, Sterling had removed his bowtie and tuxedo jacket (which, unfortunately had his flask in it), and was trudging through the mud, calling out Lana's name into the trees...he hoped that she wouldn't hear the desperation in his voice.

"Laaanaaa! Come back to me, please! I...I love you, Lana! We don't have to get married if you don't want to, just...", he stubbornly wiped the tears from his muddy face, "...just don't leave me to raise our boys alone...please, Lana?"

His voice had finally given up; his dry, damaged throat couldn't take any more abuse right now. He plopped down on a tree stump sticking out of the filthy forest floor, and buried his face in his hands, frustrated and heartbroken.

He never asked to be the father of twin boys, hell he didn't even have a say when they were conceived...he loved Leon and Lewis with all his heart, but raising them by himself, while juggling having any semblance of a social life and being a top notch secret agent? Shit...sounds far too familiar of a story...

...Archer picked himself up, and kept walking through the mud. He was determined that he was going to do everything he could to prevent history from repeating itself, even if he couldn't speak.

* * *

Malory had parked the Caddy and covered it in large pine boughs, camouflaging the vehicle, and sat with her shotgun behind the car, straining to hear any movement in her immediate vicinity, and hearing nothing.

She checked her phone...no updates.

Malory scowled, and moved silently to the other side of the car, trying to see if she could detect anything from there, but to no avail. She continued to keep watch.

* * *

Lana pushed her way through some thick foliage, and found a small, sunny clearing dotted with colorful blue and yellow wildflowers. Thankful for the lack of mud and bugs, she laid herself down to take a break; assessing from how tired she felt, she estimated that she'd gone about seven miles, downhill.

She realized she wasn't as in good of shape after her pregnancy, but covering that much ground in about an hour and ten minutes wasn't too shabby.

She had been analyzing her predicament, and had decided that she wanted to stay with Archer and their sons, but she was simply not mentally ready to be married...that is, if he would take her back at all...

Shit, was Archer really a better parent than her?

Lana leaned back on her elbows, staring off into the forest, and thought long and hard about that concept. Maybe, just maybe, she had him pegged wrong all along.

Huh.

* * *

Malory drove the Eldorado cautiously through the increasingly-rough terrain, and finally stopped when the back tires became lodged in the mud.

"Oh, for god's sake...", she muttered, putting the car into park. There was no way it was getting out of the thick mud without the aid of a tow truck.

Malory grabbed her shotgun and purse, and got out, leaving the Eldorado behind. After walking a few hundred yards, her phone rang; it was her contact.

"What do you got for me? Anything big?", she said into the phone, still scanning her surroundings for any trace of either Sterling or Lana.

"That is, how you say, what she has said, ha, I make joke...", Boris chuckled to himself.

In Moscow, the head of the KGB was looking at a live satellite map of the Catskills. Thuy, the manicurist, was working on his toes.

"This is no time for stupid jokes, you oaf! I have two of my best agents on the loose, and I sure as hell don't want to raise those two mini-idiots that Sterling spawned, so the sooner we cram this family back together, the sooner I can get back to not dealing with parenting! Now, I repeat, _what do you have for me?_"

Boris snapped to attention, Malory's tone enough to demand attention from someone on the other side of the planet.

"Da, apologies, Ms Archer...I have spotted both Sterling and agent Kane's GPS beacons, they are about four miles from your current location. Sterling is less than a mile from agent Kane, and is closing in". He nodded at Thuy when she held up a bottle of clear coat.

"That's more like it...now get to work on finding out where that hemorrhage in ISIS funds is coming from, and we'll be square for what happened with Nikolai...keep me updated, you vodka-soaked bastard", she hung up her phone, and followed the map Boris had texted her of Archer and Lana's location.

"Vodka soaked, da...bastard, no...momma and poppa would never do that to me. Right?", Boris looked over to his elderly parents lounging around the new coffee table he had bought. They shook their heads, and continued sipping their coffee and vodka.

"Cyril! Come to my office, I have job for you", Boris buzzed into the intercom on his desk. He took a moment to admire Thuy's handiwork with his toes.

Cyril, decked out in his KGB uniform, had been living in Russia with Trinette and Seamus for a few months now, and had settled in nicely. He had pulled more money away from ISIS and into the pockets of the KGB than Boris expected, and was rewarded handsomely for his work.

"Yes? What can I...oh god, is that-is that Lana?", Cyril walked into the office, and stared at the satellite surveillance image of Lana in her tattered wedding dress, sleeping in the patch of wildflowers.

"Da, that is agent Kane. She ran away from her wedding to your buddy pal, Sterling Archer...", Boris was watching Cyril's face closely; he was obviously shocked and fascinated.

"W-why did she run away? Did she leave her kids, too?", Cyril walked up to the screen and rested his hand on the glass surface, his eyes glued to Lana's mournful face.

Boris, knowing now how to manipulate his comptroller, decided to lie.

"Da...and this Sterling, he had started, ah, slapping her when he got mad, and doing other...bad things to agent Kane behind closed door..."

Cyril grew red in the face, enraged at the thought of Archer hitting Lana.

"That...THAT SON OF A BITCH! That tears it! That bastard has been a...a complete asshole for years! I tried to kill him, but those lousy robots couldn't get their shit straight...now he's _abusing Lana_?! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!", he yelled, pounding his fist on Boris' desk.

Boris smirked; he had Cyril right where he wanted.

"I'm going to kill Archer...get me on a plane, Boris. This shit ends now", Cyril grabbed Boris' collar.

The KGB leader, maintaining eye contact, handed him Katya's Dragonuv.

"It is on tarmac, you leave in five minutes, buddy".

Cyril grabbed the rifle and marched out of the office, determined to kill Archer. A single shot was heard, followed by a meek "sorry".

* * *

Archer, completely exhausted, walked through the woods; he spotted a clearing up ahead, and also saw-

"Lana," Archer whispered silently to himself. His voice was officially out for the time being.

Her sleeping form was illuminated by the late afternoon sunshine, surrounded by purple morning glories and bright yellow daffodils. Although she was covered in mud and sweat, her dress in shambles, and her makeup a mess, she never looked more beautiful...

...Sterling, relieved to find Lana, tiptoed to her, and kneeled down next to her.

She stirred a little in her sleep, a faint smile on her lips. He smiled back; he wasn't sure if she would ever be his wife, but he knew she'd always be the mother of his kids, no matter what...somehow, that meant more to him than being married. More...permanent.

Archer sighed, and brushed away some dried mud from Lana's face. He leaned down and kissed her softly.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she jumped back when she saw Archer sitting next to her.

"Oh shit...hi honey...so yeah. Um...sorry?" She shrugged sheepishly.

Archer furrowed his brow at her, but put his arm around her shoulders anyway.

"No words? Are you that pissed at me? Because I can- oh, gotcha" Archer pointed at his neck, made a talking motion with his hand, then, pointing at himself, shook his head.

They sat there silently for a moment, then he rolled his eyes and tapped Lana's arm impatiently.

"What? Oh right...listen, it's not like I don't love you, Archer, I honestly do, it's just...I don't know, it feels weird thinking of myself as your _wife_, y'know? Like I'm not exactly wife material...I-", Archer cut her off with a deep kiss, his hand holding her chin.

He broke away for a moment, looked into her eyes, and just nodded. He understood...as long as she would still help raise Leon and Lewis, it was bearable.

Lana smiled, and hugged Archer tightly.

"Thank you, Archer...I'm sorry I ran away and fucked up everything. Maybe someday I'll be ready to be Mrs Archer, but not yet, right?", she leaned back to look at Sterling's face.

He was obviously disappointed, but still relieved to have her back. He nodded again.

He then pulled her towards him to kiss her once more...his hand migrated it's way up her thigh, hooked into the waistband of her slip, and tugged it away.

They made love quietly in the patch of wildflowers in the heat of the late afternoon, neither one hearing the sounds of footsteps approaching as they both reached their peak.

A figure with a gun crouched behind a shrub, and waited until the couple rolled away from each other, and watched them drift off to sleep.

Malory, disgusted, finished off the rest of her flask, and put her shotgun down. She pulled out her phone once more, and called in an evac helicopter to come pick them up.

"Close enough", she muttered to herself as she put the phone back in her purse.

The couple slept silently until Malory blew her self-defense air horn above their heads, the helicopter nearby.

"I still don't see why you canceled the marriage...you two are both monumental idiots, you're perfectly compatible with each other", Malory scowled as the helicopter took them back to The Peach Tree.

Lana and Archer just looked at each other, and started laughing, holding each others' hands.

She was right, they were perfect how they were.


	11. Malice in the Maldives

Note: Nearing the end of this beast soon, folks! Only one more chapter and an epilouge after this. I've updated the name of this story (the Melville reference seems too irrelevant at this point) to _Solace of Gemini. _I'm also in the process of making a cover image for this story based on the movie poster for _Quantum of Solace_ as to keep up the awesome tradition of James Bond-based Archer posters. I'll shut up now and let you dig into this already!

Chapter Eleven: Malice in the Maldives

Archer and Lana decided to take the vacation to the Maldives as planned, despite not going through with the marriage. They figured they might as well go and relax for a week (and to avoid the inevitable gossip storm at ISIS), and treat themselves after their stressful past year.

Lana, clad in her bikini and sarong, walked along the beach, watching the sun slowly descend into the horizon. Archer had gone to the island's hospital to get his throat examined (his voice returned briefly during their flight, but it went out again when he screamed at a stewardess for running out of Hurricanes)...Lana actually appreciated it when his voice failed him sometimes.

She walked up to a palm tree, and leaned against it, facing the ocean. Even though she still felt bad about how she behaved at the wedding, she was happy with her new, evolved relationship with Archer. They agreed to live apart from each other when they got back to New York, but that the boys would live with Archer primarily, since Woodhouse would be around to care for them when he was out, and allow Lana some much needed space. She'd have them at her place on the weekends, and they would celebrate holidays together as a family.

Lana couldn't be happier, she had the best of both worlds. She has the freedom of not being married and having her own space, but all of the joys and responsibilities of being a mother.

Truly, she was at peace.

A gloved hand clapped a soaked handkerchief over her face, and Lana passed out immediately.

A dark figure removed the rag from Lana's face, and dragged her unconscious body up the beach, into the growing shadows of the palm trees as the sun was swallowed into the ocean.

* * *

Archer, walking out the door of the local hospital, happily took a swig off of the large bottle of codeine the doctor has prescribed him; his throat felt better with every gulp.

He turned the bottle to read the label, trying to estimate if one mouthful was equivalent to a tablespoon...as the warm numbness of the opiate embraced him, he no longer cared.

Laughing to himself, he put the bottle into the pocket of his red board shorts, and walked the short distance down the darkened road towards the private, over water bungalow where him and Lana were staying for the week.

As he approached the bungalow, he noticed all the lights were off, even though it was fairly dark out. A high-pitched scream, followed by the flash and sound of a gun being fired came from one of the windows.

Archer ran towards the hut, his pistol in hand.

He kicked down the thin, wooden door, and scanned the small, dark room. In the corner, he heard something moving.

"Lana? Psst, hey is that you?", he whispered into the darkness.

A sudden flash of white and a loud bang, followed by the stench of sulfur and smoke was the response.

Archer grabbed at his bleeding chest; he'd been shot.

Staggering, he slapped the button to turn on the lights as he pressed his back against the wall.

"C...Cyril...? Shit...what the fuck...is going on with your hair?"

Cyril, standing in front of Archer's face, was removing a nitrile glove from his hand, the smoking Dragunov by his side. He adjusted his new eyeglasses on the bridge of his nose. He had ditched the contacts a few weeks ago due to a bout of pinkeye, and decided he liked the glasses better. He glanced upwards at his freshly-colored hair, noticing it was actually pretty blotchy.

"I dyed it, you...wait, aren't you going to ask why I shot you? Or why I'm here? Or how I found you?", he asked as he put the nitrile gloves into a plastic Ziploc bag and into his pocket.

"No...you idiot. That...hair color is...too distracting...ow...", Archer said, holding his chest tightly as he slumped down to the bamboo floor.

He kneeled down to Archer's face, and narrowed his eyes.

"Well I'm telling you anyway. I heard from a...reliable source that you've been beating Lana, and, last time I checked, that usually justifies a murder. I tried putting a hit out on both of you a while back, but Barry and Katya messed that up by dying, thanks to you guys. So, although I wanted Lana dead before, the thought of _you_ hurting her was unacceptable. I'm here to...to do this, and I found you because-"

"-you...defected to Russia and used their...surveillance equipment...dumbass. Your little decoder ring gave that away", Archer choked out, pointing to the KGB ring on Cyril's finger.

Cyril, his face blank, looked at his hand...

"Geezy Petes, I am not very good at this."

Archer, taking the few seconds of distraction, grabbed his handgun and shot Cyril's kneecap.

He rolled over, howling in pain, holding his bloodied knee.

Archer crawled to the wounded comptroller, and pointed his gun at his temple.

"You're such a...a pussy, Cyril. I got shot in my goddamned chest...I'm not crying about it. And for the...record, I'd never hit...Lana. Paddle her ass red...yes...but only if she...was in the mood for it. You...dumb fuck", his finger twitched on the trigger as he pressed the barrel hard against Cyril's head, enraged at the accusation.

Cyril smacked the pistol away from his head, and jumped when a round went by the top of his head and into the leg of the nearby coffee table.

"What the hell, Archer? You nearly _killed_ me!" Cyril looked at Archer, mad and startled.

"Duh, dumbass, I AM trying...to kill you!", he said as he aimed at Cyril's head again.

Cyril shakily stood up, and limped away from Archer, who managed to get up on his feet as well.

Archer, leaning against the wall, inched toward Cyril, who was hopping to the doorway of the hut.

"C'mon, Cyril, hold still...so I can kill you already", Archer yelled as he fired again, the bullet whizzing over Cyril's shoulder as he hopped down the stairs and onto the beach.

"No! Never!", he shouted over his shoulder.

Cyril tripped over some seaweed, and fell in the sand roughly, all of his weight landing directly on his bloodied knee; he screamed at the full moon above the ocean in excruciating pain.

Flipping over onto his back, he watched as Archer slowly caught up to him, still bleeding from his chest.

"Man...how are you not dead yet? I-I shot you right in your...oh, gotcha", Cyril said as Archer unbuttoned his Acapulco shirt, revealing that he was wearing a bulletproof vest the whole time. The bleeding wound was just a large cut across his left pectoral muscle from a bullet fragment that flew up on impact.

"Yeah, Cyril. Jesus, you really aren't good at this, are you?", Archer coughed, recovered from having the wind knocked out of him by the bullet, and smirked as he reaimed his handgun at the frightened comptroller at his feet.

Cyril, crushed, looked away, ashamed at his ever-present incompetence, and took a deep breath.

"Oh, screw it! What's the point? I give up...you win, Archer. Just...shoot me already. You took away everything I had: Lana, my sanity, my confidence...might as well take my life too. Just...just tell Trinette and Seamus I died with _some_ dignity, ok?"

Archer lowered his gun, a look of surprise across his face.

"Woah, back up. You're with Trinette? And the wee baby Seamus?"

Cyril nodded, leaned up on his elbow, dug out his wallet from his back pocket, and handed it to Archer. He opened it, and saw the dozen or so pictures inside of Cyril, Trinette, and Seamus.

Archer looked at the photos, shocked and happy to see the baby he once considered the closest thing he'd get to a son happy and healthy, and in a family. He looked back down at Cyril, who was staring back at him, desperation across his face.

Sighing, Archer tossed the wallet back at Cyril, and kneeled down next to him.

"All right, Cyril, I'm going to make a deal with you. I'm going to let you live, not out of pity because of how pathetic you are, but because I promised Seamus I'd always have his back...killing his dad would seriously be a dick move, so remember that I'm letting you go because of _him_, not you. I'll leave you and your family alone if you do the same for me, Lana, and my sons, all right? Oh, and speaking of Lana, where the hell is she?"

Cyril, relieved, slowly stood, and pointed behind the hut.

Lana was snoring loudly on a beach towel, unscathed, sleeping off the chloraform from earlier.

"Awesome...but what about that gunshot I heard earlier? What was that all about?", Archer asked as he holstered his pistol and helped Cyril on his wobbly feet.

"Oh that? I...I saw a big bat flying around the room. Scared the bejeezus out of me..." Cyril said sheepishly.

Archer rolled his eyes, and walked past Cyril up the beach towards Lana.

Cyril, grateful that he got a second chance at life, smiled as he watched Archer scoop up Lana in his arms as she woke up, and kissed her on her forehead.

"That doesn't seem like the kind of guy that'd hit the mother of his kids...maybe Boris had bad intel...", Cyril thought to himself, staring at the happy couple.

Archer walked up the steps to the hut, and looked down at the beach at Cyril. He nodded his head off into the distance, indicating that he wanted him to leave. Archer carried the sleepy Lana into the hut, and shut off the lights.

Cyril hobbled off in the moonlight, happy that everything was going to be all right.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Russia, Boris rolled off of Trinette, satisfied.

"That was, how you say, ah, kickass", he said as he lit a small cigar.

Trinette smirked, and sat up in bed, and took a swig off of the gold, diamond-encrusted bottle of Russo-Baltique vodka. She and Boris had been carrying on an affair for months, completely unknown to Cyril. They had planned to send Cyril off on a suicide mission to get him out of the picture permanently.

They didn't know he was on his way back to Moscow as they sat in bed, half-full caviar jars and heavy gold luxury vodka bottles scattered around the room.

"Yeah, I know, you were pretty kickass yourself. Dammit, this place is looking like a dump. HEY! Maid! Get yer bony metal ass in here!", Trinette shouted out the bedroom door.

The damaged, cobbled-together remains of Katya's cyborg body entered the room, clad in a skimpy maid outfit.

"What is your command, Master?", the brainless shell of a robot asked, broom and dust pan in hand.

Trinette and Boris laughed cruelly as the emotionless body of the former head of the KGB swept up the filth of their opulent excess.

Seamus, who had just turned 5, stood in his bedroom down the hallway from "Papa Boris's" room, looking at the mysterious tattoo on his shoulder in the mirrored surface of his closet door, trying his best to read what it said.

"Rehcra? What's that mean...?", he thought to himself. He was incredibly intelligent for his age, but he rarely spoke in the presence of his parents or other adults.

A knock on his door broke his concentration, and he tucked the hem of his small KGB uniform shirt into the back of his slacks.

"Comrade Seamus! Time for your SPETSNAZ training!", a guard shouted from behind the heavy wooden door.

Seamus sighed, grabbed his knapsack and his small NR-2 survival knife off his nightstand.

He exited his bedroom, and walked off down the hallway to his lessons in Russian special ops, still wondering what the strange mark on his shoulder meant.

He had a feeling he'd never know for sure.


	12. Fairy Tale of New York (and Beyond)

Chapter Twelve: Fairy Tale of New York (and Beyond)

Lana hummed to herself happily as she packed up her belongings into the same boxes she used just a few months ago to move into Archer's penthouse. The vacation in the Maldives, despite being temporarily interrupted by Cyril's everlasting douchebaggery, refreshed her spirit and reinforced her demeanor.

Archer had taken Leon and Lewis out to the park for the day to give Lana time to pack and to lessen the emotional impact of moving away from her sons. Lana saw it as a wonderful gift; Archer saw it as a lazy-ass way of getting out of menial labor and an opportunity to hang out with his kids.

Before Sterling left his penthouse to Lana for the day, she gave her sons the gifts she had brought home from the Maldives for them: a heavy topaz statute of the buddhist goddess of wealth and prosperity, Yellow Tārā, and a stuffed toy great white shark for each boy.

As she went through her things, she spotted her old family photo album, the catalyst for her decision to become a mother in the first place.

Lana hesitated momentarily before opening the dusty, singed album, knowing full well what she'd find inside:

Nothing. Nothing but blank pages.

She choked back a sob, her thoughts to wandering back to her past...

...she was only six years old when she heard the fire alarm blaring from the hallway of her family's apartment building a few weeks before Christmas.

She rubbed her dry, tired eyes in the smokey air of her family's dingy apartment, confused and frightened.

She remembered crying and holding her stuffed toy lion close to her chest, and wailing when she burned her hand on the red hot doorknob of her bedroom door when she tried to open it. She remembered grabbing a few pictures from her nightstand, and panicking when she realized she couldn't carry the photos as well as her stuffed lion...she chose the photos.

Putting the few precious pictures into the elastic neckband of her light pink, threadbare nightgown, she walked to her window, and remembered the sharp, tinkling sound of the old, runny glass as the shards fell to the floor when she threw a heavy book against it to get out, and crawling down the rusty, creaking fire escape stairs, down the twenty stories to the street below. The bright flashing lights of the fire trucks under her encouraged her to keep going, despite the freezing temperature of the metal ladder rungs biting into her tiny brown hands and bare feet with every step.

The photos she had stuffed into the front of her nightgown spilled out when she craned her head over her shoulder to look down, about halfway down the building, each one being swallowed whole by the orange flames. The ashes from the incinerated papers swirled above her head in the plumes of smoke, dancing with the fine mist of frozen rain coming down, the last shreds of her family lost to the infinite vacuum of the cloudy night sky.

Lana couldn't quite remember the name of her mother or brothers being the youngest in the family by nearly a decade, but knew from old newspaper clippings that her father, Lewis Kane, was a decorated U.S. Army sergeant who saved the lives of his entire unit from an ambush during the war...he died in a car accident before she even had a chance to meet him, but, in a way, he was the only family she ever felt like she knew.

Lana Kane was the sole survivor of one of Brownsville, Brooklyn's most devastating, unsolved arsons. To this day, no one knew who started the inferno that killed Lana's mother and three older brothers in their sleep. The empty photo album her oldest brother bought as a Christmas gift for their mother was the only thing aside from herself that survived the fire. When the firefighters gave her the album when they found it in the wreckage the next morning, she kept it, hoping that, somehow, someday, one of the pictures she lost would be found so she could add it to the album.

Lana cringed as she sniffed back a tear, and leafed through her empty, partially burned photo album, the blank pages mocking her with every turn.

She gasped, however, when a grainy black and white picture fell out into the floor. Lana picked it up, and flipped it over to see the image on the front.

Her eyes welled with tears when she saw what the picture was.

It was one of the ultrasound pictures of Leon and Lewis, the first one where both boys were clearly visible, and the first one Archer accompanied her to, with the section where it listed the father as "DONOR" crossed out in Archer's handwriting and his name scrawled out underneath it, with several exclamation points followed afterwards.

Lana smiled, and held the album close to her heart.

She really did have a family...after the fire, she was left an orphan who was in a group home until she ran away when she was 16, but she clawed out of all the muck and the bullshit to become not only one of the world's best secret agents, but a mother and a...kind of girlfriend/fiancée/best friend of the father of her twin sons. It was all worth it, and, although it was completely unorthodox, the current setup was still all she ever wanted aside from success in her career: a family of her own.

Lana closed the album, envisioning the pictures she'd add in the years ahead as her family lived on.

* * *

"Change? Anyone? Change? C'mon, just a few rubles so I can at least get something to eat...", Cyril said desperately with his muddy hand extended to the crowded sidewalks of Moscow. He had been leaning on his cane to take pressure off his injured knee in the pouring rain for days, and had been sleeping in an alley every night.

Boris and Trinette had eloped only a few hours before he arrived home from his trek in the Maldives. Trinette had left Seamus behind to continue his SPETSNAZ training, to his father's dismay. After putting a burn notice out on Cyril, Boris had appointed a cyborg that he had bought from Dr Krieger (made from Barry's spare parts) that looked and behaved identically to himself in every way as the new, temporary head of the KGB in his absence. The cyborg was designed to attack anyone that was not on the KGB database that entered headquarters, so Cyril had not even been able to retrieve his belongings from his apartment inside the giant KGB hub before being chased out onto the rainy streets of Moscow.

Cyril, though homeless and penniless, held out hope that one day, he would be able to reunite with his estranged son and leave Russia...at least he knew Seamus was somewhat better off than he was, and that kept him motivated to keep his chin up despite his situation.

Smiling and hopeful, he crossed the busy intersection a few blocks away from Red Square, and was nearly hit by a speeding bus; a wave of filthy water and mud sprayed him from head to toe. The bus came to a stop at a bench a few hundred yards from where he stood, drenched. As he leaned down to pick up his cane, his glasses fell into the puddle underneath him. One of the lenses cracked upon impact with the asphalt.

"Geezy Pete...", Cyril mumbled, looking at the damaged lens sadly.

A woman departed the bus and ran toward Cyril, carrying two suitcases.

" 'Allo, Monsieur Figgis!"

Framboise, Barry Dillon's former almost-fiancée and the original Pele of Anal, smiled at her pathetic, soaked, filthy, former lover, holding a small towel out to him.

Cyril adjusted his broken glasses in disbelief, and smiled ear to ear, accepting the towel graciously, and wrapped it over his shoulders. She hugged him tightly, nearly knocking him over, and the two walked towards her new apartment a few blocks away.

Cyril did not hesitate to grab a handful of her ass with his free hand as they walked together through the rain.

* * *

"THIS man, Sterling Archer, is the most dangerous threat to all of Mother Russia!"

The KGB general clicked the button to advance to the next slide; his class of SPETSNAZ students looked on, rapt in the lecture.

Seamus, by far the youngest in the entire class by ten years, looked at the picture on the screen in utter disbelief.

"These are two of the known distinguishing features of the American pigdog, Agent Sterling Archer! He has two tattoos on his shoulders; it is unknown what this 'Dicky' and 'Seamus' are, or who, or where, but you can check for these markings to see through any disguise if he is to be captured to verify his identity!"

Seamus's small stomach sank when the pieces fell into place in his mind...

...he had to capture the KGB's worst enemy one day, and interrogate him on why he was marked with his name and vice versa; he realized that this was his destiny.

The young Seamus Magoon-Figgis narrowed his light brown eyes in hate, eager to learn as much as he could to track this man down someday, discover his past, and find out the origin of the bizarre tattoo on his back once and for all.

* * *

"LEON! Christ, kid! Learn how to share!", Archer scolded his son as he confiscated the wailing baby's half-melted ice cream cone.

Lewis, who had dropped his own cone in the grass just moments before, grabbed the icy treat greedily and crammed it into his mouth, causing most of it to spill out onto the blanket underneath him and his brother.

Sterling, sitting on a park bench behind his kids, sighed in annoyance, looking at Leon and Lewis over his sunglasses.

"Goddamn, you two really haven't gotten this whole 'feed yourself' thing down yet, have you? Shit, I was sure that you guys would almost _have_ to, what with Pam raiding my kitchen for a whole week...", Archer said as he leaned down to wipe butter rum ice cream off of his kids' faces and hands. He laughed when Leon grabbed the handkerchief out of his hand and smeared the fabric over his own face..."what a tiny, independent badass", Archer thought to himself.

He leaned back into the bench and happily took a sip from the bottle of port that he concealed in a brown paper bag, watching the other people in Central Park running around, having fun on the gorgeous afternoon in early June. He looked down at his sons, rolling around on their backs on the blanket near his feet, giggling and flailing their tiny arms at each other.

Leon and Lewis had turned five months old a week before, and had become much more talkative and active, which amused their father to no end; ever since he'd been home, all he wanted to do is listen to the funny babblings his boys would exchange, almost as if they were talking to each other in a language only they could understand.

"Man, you two are gonna need to start taking krav maga classes as soon as you figure out how to walk...you'll be able to kill, like...I dunno, the king of Spain or something with your bare hands before you guys even learn to read!", Sterling said excitedly as he scooped up both infants in his hands.

Leon cuddled against his father's chest, clinging tiredly onto his white polo shirt; Lewis, however, was still squirming around in Archer's arm, struggling to grab at his dozing brother.

"Jesus kid, that does it, no more booze-laced dairy for you today, you're agitated...Leon? You good?", he looked down to his sleeping son, still clinging onto his shirt. Lewis, still attempting to wriggle away, soon yawned loudly and nodded off as well.

Archer grinned widely, proud that he could get his kids to sleep practically on command at this point; being the world's greatest semi-single, kind of engaged/"it's complicated" Dad was gonna be a breeze.

He gently placed each sleeping baby into the nearby stroller, and walked them off down the pathway of the park to go home.

Sterling took out his bottle of port wine again, and whistled the chorus of _Danger Zone_ as he pushed the stroller along under the trees.

Sterling Mallory Archer was finally truly happy, and was incredibly grateful that Lana had given him this new chapter in his life. He genuinely loved that she was just as happy as he was, despite neither of them quite knowing what the status of their relationship was, or would potentially become.

He chuckled to himself at his unbelievable luck, took another pull off his bottle, and walked his two sons home.

* * *

**THE END**

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you, everyone, for all of your reviews, reads, and faves! Please, keep an eye out for the upcoming epilogue, cover art, and, of course, any and all future stories I write for Archer, and whatever else I wind up posting. Hopefully, this story will hold you guys over until season 5 premieres.

Later, taters!

-H. Hawksworth, aka PurpleHairedGenius


	13. Epilogue: Double Shot

Epilogue: Double Shot

* * *

Ten Years Later

* * *

"I am the target...I AM the target..."

Leon Reginald Archer, adjusting his aim, stared at his objective in his sights: his own twin brother, Lewis Roosevelt Archer, who was staring back at him, a near-perfect living reflection of himself. Their blue black hair shifted in the wind simultaneously, their vibrant aqua-marine eyes narrowing at each other, waiting for the inevitable.

"I AM THE TARG-OW! Asshole!", Leon whined as he rubbed his bruised forehead. The projectile ice cube sat by his feet.

"You shoulda shot first instead of psyching yourself up, douchebag!" Lewis taunted, lowering his wrist rocket slingshot. His brother, crouching on the ground in pain, stared at him angrily, his own slingshot by his knees.

"Dude, you all right? Dad's gonna kill me if he found out I nearly assassinated you...", Lewis helped up his twin, pocketing his weapon.

The two brothers looked nervously around the terrace of their father's penthouse, their home since birth. No obvious sign of their father, but someone was definitely coming outside.

"Oh shit, Woodhouse!", they both thought simultaneously before taking off in opposite directions.

"Lads? Where are the ice cubes? Your father needs them for-" Woodhouse's words were cut off by silence as he stepped out on the terrace, which was apparently empty.

He had recently come back from the methadone clinic, and was feeling less dour than usual. Woodhouse had suffered a heroin overdose a year ago while babysitting the twins one night and nearly died. Archer had come home just in time to perform CPR and have Lewis call 911; he had since voluntarily quit his favorite, half-century long "hobby", and, after several weeks of hell from withdrawals, had been getting stronger and gaining some weight. Now, Woodhouse was actually fairly pudgy, albeit a lot healthier, much to Archer's amusement.

This did not, however, excuse him from being terrorized by his employer and his sons.

"NOW, GUYS!", Archer yelled from behind the hot tub.

Leon and Lewis pulled the string attached to the bucket of ice cubes that was suspended above Woodhouse's head, dumping it's contents on their valet. Archer sprinted by the confused old man toward his sons, and lobbed a raw brown egg at the back of his bald head.

Archer, nearly 47, had barely aged physically in the past decade, save for a few, hardly noticable wrinkles and a tiny hint of silver developing near his sideburns, but he was still strong, still working for ISIS, still single, and still as much of a dick as he was the day he brought his sons home.

Leon and Lewis ran up to meet their father's side, laughing along with Archer at Woodhouse. The fat, elderly man was struggling to get the raw egg out of the back of his shirt, slipping on the ice cubes under his feet with every step.

"Oh man! I swear to Christ, Woodhouse, if you died, we'd have to spend a fortune on cable and movies just to get an iota of the entertainment you provide us! Right, fellas?", Archer said between pangs of hysterical laughing, holding onto his sons' shoulders. Both boys nodded in agreement, themselves in stitches.

Woodhouse, sitting flatly on his large arse, had to pause to laugh at the situation himself, and soon joined up with his pseudo-family, still covered in egg.

* * *

Lana drove her new indigo-colored Mustang towards Archer's place to up her sons for the weekend. Her husband and the boys' stepfather, Orin Steel, sat in the passenger seat.

Orin, an agent that Malory hired on shortly before she retired, was a former ODIN operative. He fell head over heels for Lana only a few days after he was hired, and, after three years of dating, Lana popped the question to Orin at Malory's retirement party last year, much to Archer's chagrin...

* * *

A Year Earlier

* * *

"WHAT. THE. SHIT. LANA?!", Sterling bellowed after a minute of silence. Lana stared daggers at the shocked father of her sons, still on her knee with the ring in her hand in front of Orin. The entire staff of ISIS tensed in anticipation of Orin's answer.

The tall, tanned, hazel-eyed handsome Englishman looked down fondly at Lana, and graciously accepted the ring. Orin took her hand in his, and said "YUUUUUP!"

Archer then fainted.

A few minutes later, he awoke on the office floor to applause and cheering.

"Christ, people, no need to rub it in...boom, phrasing...", he grumbled as he stood up.

"Shut up, idiot, your mother just announced her successor!", Cheryl said as she jabbed Sterling in the ribs, causing him to buckle over again.

"Ouch, dammit...wait, for real? Shit, I'd better get up there then..."

Archer stood up, adjusted his tie and smoothed down his (still inexplicably thick) mostly-blue black hair, and walked through the clapping crowd to the front of the office where Malory stood, next to-

"WHAT?! PAM?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?", Archer screamed, jaw hanging open, dumbfounded.

"Heh heh, yeah, I'm the new boss, Skinny! Better get used to it, or I'll fire your ass!", Pam shouted at Archer, shaking hands with Malory.

"Mother! Why...? Why _PAM_, out of all people you could possibly choose to take over ISIS? Most importantly, **WHY** **NOT ME**?!", Archer yelled, his shoulders slouched. He grabbed an opened bottle of champagne off the nearby catering spread, and chugged down a significant amount in a single gulp.

"Because, you buffoon, Pam is the only one in this entire Mickey Mouse operation that has ever given more of a damn about this place than me! Plus she doesn't have a couple of brats at home to neglect with the inevitable long hours a position such as this requires, so you and my idiot grandsons should be thanking me, Mister!" Malory chided, sipping her tumbler of scotch.

"Woah, so what, I'm next in line to take over if Pam quits or dies or whatever?", he looked up hopefully, tossing the empty champagne bottle into a nearby trashcan.

"Technically, but really that's up to your new boss, dear. As for me, I have a private jet to Sicily to catch for the first leg of my vacation around the world. Ciao, you bunch of fucking morons! I am OUTTA HERE!", Malory said enthusiastically as she threw her empty crystal tumbler to the ground. She flipped off all of her former employees, and walked out of the office for the last time, laughing.

Pam looked out at her new subordinates: a gaggle of drones, a clone of Hitler, a glue-sniffing schizophrenic, an alcoholic single father, a newly-engaged middle-aged couple, and...

"Hey, where the hell is Ray?"

* * *

Miles away in Chelsea, the late morning sun fell on Ray's sleeping form.

"Dukes, how could you lemme sleep through the alarm? What if that old bat appointed ME the new head of ISIS?", Ray sat up in bed with a start, scolding his lover beside him. He stared wearily at the clock, it was 10am.

Ramon Limon, the former top Cuban agent for Fidel Castro, yawned loudly, rolled his eyes and turned over on his side to face Ray.

"Ay, vete a la mierda, Mi Amor...you've been so stressed lately, I thought I'd treat you to a day off. Besides, those ISIS pendejos are just...SO annoying, yes?", Ramon said as he scooted closer to Ray.

Ray relaxed a bit, and smiled warmly at Ramon. Ray had been hiding Ramon in his apartment from Cuban assassins for months, after dating a couple times before. They had talked about leaving the USA together, but Ray was still on the fence on leaving his life behind.

"Oh, I guess you're right...thanks, honey. Suppose I do need a bit of a break. Now, how's about we get back to bed before I wind up with the diabetes from how sweet you are to me?" Ray said, winking at Ramon.

They wrapped their arms around each other, and fell back asleep.

The happy couple moved to a remote village in Switzerland the next week, and hadn't returned since.

* * *

"Mom! Orin!", Lewis ran up to Lana happily, and hugged her tightly. Leon leaned up against the wall near the front door, scowling at his stepfather. Despite Orin's best efforts to be a good parental figure to his wife's kids, Leon never liked him. Lewis, however, was different.

"Orin! Guess what? I almost killed Leon this morning with an ice cube! Oh, and Bartleby did the coolest thing, I gotta show you his new trick, c'mon!", he said excitedly, dragging his stepfather to his room by the sleeve of his suit.

Archer, tumbler of bourbon in hand, walked around the corner, and nearly bumped into them as they ran by.

"Hey, watch it, asshole...", he mumbled at Orin, pissed to have Lana's husband in his house at all. Orin just ignored Archer, like always. He knew that his unresponsiveness drove Archer crazier than anything he could possibly say, and exercised this fact as often as he could.

Lana smiled at Archer, still amused by how much he hated her husband. Leon walked up to his mom, a look of concern on his face.

"Hey Leon, something up?" Lana said to her son, wrapping her arm over his shoulder. Archer stood nearby, dipping his drink. He eyed Lana from head to toe, remembering how, for a brief time, had her all to himself...he often wondered if she ever regretted running from the altar...but, that ship had sailed years ago.

"Mom? Why did you marry that prick Orin instead of Dad?"

Lana and Archer looked at each other, shocked at their son's boldness.

"Well, first of all, Leon, _language_. Second of all, your father and I, believe it or not, actually almost got married shortly after you and your brother were born. We even lived together, here at your Dad's penthouse, for a while before that. It's just, um...", Lana trailed off, struggling to find the best way to explain to Leon that she loved Archer, but not ever enough to marry him.

Archer set his drink down, walked up to Leon, and crouched down to face him at eye level.

"What your Mom is trying to explain, Leon, is that we wanted nothing but the best for you and Lewis, and us being married wouldn't have been the best for you two. So, instead of you guys having only one home, you have two. Plus you get to sponge off that British prick Orin, which is pretty awesome, because screw that guy...", Archer winked at Leon, earning a smile from his son. He wiped away a tear from his olive-skinned face with his thumb, patted his shoulder, and stood back up. He grabbed his glass and cocked his eyebrow at Lana, smirking.

Lana rolled her eyes. "Dammit, he's like a douchebag, extra-alcoholic reincarnation of Ward Cleaver...", she thought to herself. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but Archer was a natural at being a father, despite his bachelor lifestyle and sordid interests.

Lewis and Orin walked up to the rest of their family. Bartleby, Leon and Lewis's giant pet Savannah cat, followed behind them with his long tail in the air; the huge hybrid felid was a gift from Archer for their 8th birthday, and had been part of their family ever since.

"You guys ready to go for the weekend?", Orin said, picking up his stepsons' suitcases in one hand. Lewis scratched Bartleby's head and back one more time before nodding. He hugged his Dad, grabbed his suitcase and ran out the front door happily.

Orin chuckled, and looked to Lana.

"How about you, love? Ready to go?", Orin said, his thick London accent annoying Archer with every syllable.

"Sure, hon. You go ahead and wait with the boys in the car for a minute, I gotta talk to Archer for a sec, ok?"

Orin nodded, and kissed Lana on the cheek.

"Come along, Leon, your mum needs a few with your dad", he said, reaching to ruffle Leon's inky black hair.

The boy swatted his hand away, "Don't friggin' touch me, Lames Bond..."

"Leon! Nice one! See ya Monday, buddy!", Archer laughed. Leon waved goodbye to his father. Archer shot Orin a dirty look, and flipped him off as he left the penthouse after Leon.

"Man that kid rules...anyway, what did you wanna talk about, Lana? Is Kenny Loggins doing a reunion tour?", he finished his bourbon, looking up at Lana from the empty crystal tumbler.

Lana sighed, and shut the door to the hallway behind her.

"Sterling, we need to be serious here for a minute. Could we go out on the terrace?"

Archer looked around the corner to look out the sliding glass door to his terrace; Woodhouse was still mopping up the melted ice and raw eggs from earlier.

"Uh, no, not yet...you might slip on egg and/or ice, could break your neck out there", he walked toward his bar, Lana following behind. Bartleby, purring, jumped up on the sofa, and fell asleep.

Archer refilled his tumbler, and offered Lana a glass. She shook her head, and sat on one of the bar stools.

"Well, what did you wanna talk about, Lana? Did Alex Lame-Ass leave the toilet seat up or something?"

"No, Orin is great, but...wait, Alex Lame-Ass?", Lana looked confused.

Archer sighed. "Yeah...? C'mon, John le Carre? Jesus, Lana, seriously, read a book already...", he swirled the ice in his glass, shaking his head in disbelief.

Lana refocused, and looked at the father of her sons.

"Archer, Orin wants us to move to London so we can both work for MI6, and he wants to take the kids with us."

Archer spat out his booze, and coughed, dazed from the shock.

"What?! Lana, no, please...come on, don't do this to me, Leon and Lewis are all I have left! Shit, you left me for that limey asshole, I haven't heard from Mother in almost a year now, Christ, even Woodhouse nearly died! Please, Lana, don't take away my sons...", Archer pleaded, suddenly scared at the thought of being nearly 50 years old and alone.

Lana looked into Sterling's bright blue eyes, and saw just how much the mere thought of life without Leon and Lewis hurt him. Maybe...maybe it was time to do the best thing for their sons yet again.

"Okay, Archer. I'll let them know that they'll live with you permanently from now on. Maybe they can visit us in London during the summers", Lana smiled, seeing Archer's body relax immediately after hearing her out.

"Oh Jesus, thank you, Lana...but are you sure you want to go switch agencies this late into your career? What about that awesome 401K, and that giant ISIS retirement fund? You've been working there for nearly 25 years, which, holy SHIT, we are fucking OLD, and yeah, why bail out _now_? ISIS is finally turning a profit...plus Pam's a pretty kickass boss...", he refilled his glass again, relieved but concerned for Lana.

She shrugged, and stared into the charcoal-colored marble of the bar, thinking about Archer's disturbingly insightful point.

Lana, now 43, hadn't really considered her age as a factor in her decision to move to her husband's native country. Since Pam took over ISIS, their contracts have been much more lucrative, the work environment was actually supportive, and productivity had increased tenfold. Despite Pam's boisterousness and her destructive lifestyle, when it came to running an effective workplace, she was phenomenal. Lana thought about how long she'd been with ISIS, the words '25 years' and 'we are fucking OLD' echoing in her mind.

"Holy shit, we _are_ fucking old, aren't we?", she said, astounded, looking up at Archer.

"Right? So why the hell quit now? Just ride it out another seven years, collect your retirement and all that shit, go out with a bang, and _then_ go run away to England."

Lana was downright impressed with how much more competent Archer had become over the years.

"Goddammit, Archer...I'll-I'll think about it. Thanks...you're a good friend. And an awesome father, I'm sure the kids will be fine without Orin and me", she said, a soft smile on her lips.

Archer just nodded. He still loved her, but knew that would never be his again...being her friend, and the father to their kids was enough, but he still wondered...

Lana stood up, adjusted her dress, and turned to leave.

Archer grabbed her arm, and turned her around to face him. In a rare moment of weakness, he kissed her deeply, embracing her close.

Her eyes wide, she kissed him back briefly, but broke away quickly, and slapped him.

"Goodbye, Archer. I'll drop the kids off Monday."

She left, feeling conflicted yet confident in her decision.

Archer watched her leave, his heart feeling heavy with desperation. He stood in the middle of his living room, staring at the direction of the door.

Bartleby yawned and rubbed his head against Archer's leg affectionately.

He scratched the hybrid cat's head, sighed, and plopped himself down on the couch, Bartleby curled up by his feet.

"Fuck, how can this get any wor-"

Bartleby, usually docile, sleeping, or playful, suddenly flattened his ears, and hissed at the sliding glass door to the terrace.

"Jesus, Bartleby, let me finish!", Archer scolded the giant cat. He walked over to where his pet was growling, and saw what would make his day worse.

Woodhouse was unconscious and propped up against the blue tile of the terrace wall, and a shadowy figure slipped into a corner, out of Archer's line of sight.

"…worse. Crap, son of a bitch, what now?"

Archer walked outside, looking to the corner where the mysterious form disappeared into, and drew his gun. He poked Woodhouse with his foot; he stirred, so Archer ignored him to pursue...whatever it was.

"All right, knock it off, Whoever McSneakerstein. You're messing with Sterling Malory-fucking _Archer_ here, having a particularly shitty day, so save yourself the epic ass whooping, and fuck off before I find you...", he said aloud to his seemingly empty patio, searching for the figure.

A lanky person appeared from under the tarp of the empty hot tub; Seamus Magoon-Figgis, now nearly 16, was clad in a dirty KGB uniform and had an AK-47 strapped to his back.

"Who the hell are...wait...S-Seamus?", Archer squinted, trying to recognize the face of the teenager.

"Da, I am Seamus. And you are Sterling Archer...", he began to unbutton his shirt. His accent had heavy Russian undertones, but was obviously raised by an American.

"Woah, kid, how about a handshake or something instead?"

Seamus, too focused to acknowledge the comment's lewdness, removed his shirt, and turned around, revealing the tattoo on his shoulder.

"I've waited my entire life to ask this: why the der mo' is your name on my back? More importantly, why is mine on _yours_?", he asked over his inked shoulder.

Archer laughed, "Holy shit! I almost forgot about that! All right, Seamus, put your damn clothes back on, sit down. Want a drink?", he motioned to the bar inside. Seamus shook his head, and pulled out a bottle of cheap vodka from his messenger bag.

"Always bring my own. Lead the way, Archer", he said, swallowing a large sip with a loud gulp.

Inside, at the bar, Seamus stared at Archer, seething with a mixture of hatred and anticipation.

"So kid, how's, um, how's Russia treating you and your parents? Your mom doing all right?", Archer asked, fixing himself a Cuban screw.

"I would not know how Mother is, she left me to the KGB when I was five. Father never came back for me after she left, so I was raised mostly by my SPATSNAZ instructors…"

Archer looked at the stoic teen sadly; he genuinely hoped that his former kind-of son would've had a happier childhood.

"Shit Christ, that sucks, man…I'm sorry. Well, ok, guess you want to cut to the chase and figure out the story behind that tattoo", he stirred the coconut rum into the orange juice and ice, and took a long sip.

"For a while, your mom, Trinette, was a-"

"Whore. Yes, go on." Seamus finished the statement flatly. He took another drink of his vodka, and stared at Archer.

"…right. So, like many other guys before me, I employed her services…eventually, she got pregnant, with you, and she presumed I was the father. Turns out it was Cyril, but that didn't mean a fucking thing to her until I was long out of the picture. Anyway, yeah, she kept cashing the child support checks I was forced to write her every month, until I was diagnosed with breast cancer…"

Seamus cracked a grin upon hearing this.

"Shut up, smart-ass…anyway, when I wasn't sure if I was gonna make it, I asked Trinette to hang out with you for a while, since you were, at that time, the closest thing I had to a son. So, since I had no goddamned idea what babies were into back then, I took you out to a tattoo parlor to get a matching tattoo with you, as well as promising you that I'd always have your back. Shit, like ten years ago, the last time I saw your dad, he tried to _kill_ me, and I let him go because it would've been shitty to you if I killed him. Now, that seems like a…moot point. Uh, sorry…", Archer finished the last of his Cuban screw, and looked around uncomfortably.

Seamus sat back, absorbing the information that he just received. It was simple, stupid, but had been eating away at him since he could remember.

"Wait, how the hell did you get a tattoo artist to work on a baby?"

Archer smirked, "A hundred bucks can buy some ridiculous things in this country, kid."

Seamus looked down sadly into his bottle of vodka.

"I've…always wanted to come to the US, but never could afford it. I came here on an assignment to…to kill you, but now, I am not sure if I can…", he reached towards his sidearm, slowly, contemplating the decision.

Archer drew his pistol, and aimed it quickly at the teenager.

"Seamus, I'm warning you right now, don't. Ok? I'm a lot better at this sort of shit than you, plus it'd be a _super _dick move to shoot me after I told you all of this."

Seamus, in the middle of an internal battle, hovered his hand above the handgun, trying to decide whether or not to shoot.

Finally, he put his hands on the bar, his forehead dripping with sweat.

"Please let me live here with you, Archer! I…I need to have a father! _Any _father! I'm sick of being orphaned! This is…shit!" he said desparately.

Archer, surprised at the sudden change in tone, holstered his Walther, and looked closely at Seamus: his black hair was greasy and dirty, he was abnormally thin and sickly-looking for a 15-year old, and had a rash on his neck. His fingernails were filthy and bit down to the quick, and he obviously hadn't had any stability in his short life.

He sighed, and walked over to the hyper-ventilating young man.

Archer grabbed the AK-47 and removed the clip, and removed the Skyph pistol from it's holster on his hip.

Seamus, his palms still face down on the bar, looked at Archer, confused.

"Shit, yeah you're definitely Cyril's kid, he does that same goofy face whenever I saved his ass too…", Archer smiled softly at the adolescent.

"Wait, you mean…I can stay? No more KGB?", Seamus' face brightened up, and the corners of his mouth began to curve up into a grin.

Archer rolled his eyes, "Yeah, kid, you can stay here. We just have to get you defected from the KGB and maybe, I dunno, fake your death or something, get them off your scent. You can have the guest bedro-"

He was interrupted abruptly by Seamus hugging him tightly, tears falling from his eyes, causing streaks to form on the film of dirt on his hallow cheeks.

"Thank you…Dad?", he looked up to Sterling's face, hopeful.

"Uh, how about just…oh what the shit, fine, sure, call me Dad. You're outta here as soon as you turn 18 though, this isn't the friggin' YMCA, all right?", he patted his back, trying not to be offended by the boy's smell.

"Da, whatever you say, Dad…"

Woodhouse, dazed, came into the living room area from the terrace, dried egg stuck on his face.

"Who wants frittatas for supper?"

* * *

Later that evening, after getting Seamus bathed, fed, dressed and set up in the guest bedroom, Archer sat in his study, a tumbler of scotch in hand, and Bartleby sleeping soundly by his slippered feet.

He stared into the warm glow of the fireplace, lost in thought.

How the hell did he wind up being a model dad when he never found out the identity of his own father? More importantly, was it the absence of a father figure in his life that contributed to his paternal skills? Is he even as good of a parent as he thought, or was he fucking up his offspring (and now adoptive son) without knowing it? Would he ever find out who his dad is or was?

Archer sighed, and closed his eyes, removing his reading glasses and setting them upon his book.

He awoke a few minutes later, and noticed Bartleby was sitting at the open bay window, with something by his paws.

"Bartleby, what the shit…where did you _find_ this?", he said, astounded. He picked up the old stuffed toy alligator.

Sterling, suspicious, looked around the large study. Nothing was amiss, not even the fine film of dust on the windowsill. He looked to Bartleby: no sign of distress, or even mild interest in tracking anything abnormal.

Satisfied that he was alone, he studied the old toy, and noticed that there was a line of red stitches under it's belly that he never noticed before.

Swallowing nervously, he pulled the red string out, exposing the stuffed innards of the toy, and saw a slip of paper inside.

Archer pulled it out, unfolded the old, faded letter, and read through it, and gasped.

"So **THAT'S **who my dad is! It all makes sense now!"

* * *

**THE (REAL) END**


End file.
